


A Dangerous Liaison

by Reinette_de_la_Saintonge



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassination Attempt(s), Assassins & Hitmen, Awkward Romance, Complicated Relationships, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Injury, Non-Canon Relationship, Season 3, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26170177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/pseuds/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge
Summary: “I cannot sleep”, he confessed, and blinked for the first time during their conversation, or so Mary thought to have noticed. “You cannot sleep either, so we are each in splendid company.”
Relationships: John Graves Simcoe/Mary Woodhull
Comments: 30
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something new, so here's some canon-divergent Simcoe/Mary Woodhull for your (hopefully!) reading pleasure, set right after the end of S03 E07, _Judgement_. I don't plan on it becoming a three-year epic like the last fic I completed, but it will definitively be a fun, new multichapter adventure I hope you'll join me on!

When the morning finally came, it was as if a spell had been lifted, and a nightmare ended. With the coming of the light, the blood-dimmed tide of the night had receded to the dark corners of the house; below cupboards and in closets, where they would linger for the day and at least leave her some semblance of peace and safety for as long as the sun stood high in the heavens.

Mary’s hair was still rather damp when she rose in the morning, and her limbs unwilling to move. She wanted to continue to sleep, to forget about the previous night, of what she had done, her failed plan.

Simcoe wasn’t dead.

She had come so close, _so close_ \- a fraction of an inch closer to the right, and she would have killed him. Killed, she had that night as well; one of the Rangers, a man who had happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and even attempted to be helpful.

To face what she had done was not an easy thing to do. It did not feel real; in her mind, the scenes of her hands steeped in the warm blood of the man before her on the ground, her fingers clutching the cold bayonet in her hands, where it had warmed to her touch as if the metal in her fist had grown animate, a part of her, an extension of her arm- it felt not quite real, like a bad dream.

A bad dream she wanted to sleep off, but it was not to be. For the sake of her own safety and Abe’s, to deflect any possible suspicion or shred thereof that might fall upon her being in some way linked to the events of the past night (one could never know, nothing was ever safe and certain, especially as long as the wall to her chamber was not painted over yet and her clothes of that day not yet disposed of) by shrouding herself in the demure domesticity of the housewife she pretended to so very well.

There had been a time when she had taken great pride in her hospitality, in the food she served, the clothes she wore- these things had faded, just like Abe’s ambitions, and the brittle peace before the rebellion.

Whatever Abe was thinking, she was not like him; she was no convinced supporter of Independence, and would have rather counted herself among the moderate Loyalists, but she was married to Abe, and shared the fortunes he selected for his family.

To protect Thomas, her marriage, the only two constants in her life, was paramount. Abe and she were not well-matched, but he was the father of her son, and Thomas deserved to grow up with both his parents near. She wanted to spare Thomas the shame and infamy of being the son of a hanged father; he should grow up happy and content without having others determine his fate for him.

That was the difference between men and women also; nobody had given her a choice but to accept Abe’s hand when Thomas had been killed at Boston. In essence, it was a Levirate Marriage; it had not been right, for neither of them.

She had been enamoured with the dashing captain, and had been wed to a cabbage-farmer, a far cry from the elegance of a uniform and the respectability of being the wife of a gallant officer; and he had been deprived of the possibility to marry the woman he regularly went to bed with, to the knowledge of the whole town, and Mary’s shame.

In a sense, Abe was as much a victim of the circumstances as she. As companions in their shared misfortune, Mary could muster compassion for her husband. 

Her personal misfortune had increased this past night; all her life, she had held a strong belief in the dictions of the Church, and lived according to them; in this last night, she had broken the Sixth commandment, and was likely to violate the Ninth as well, if questioned on the events of this past night, which she would inevitably be.

She had broken the Ninth already, she reminded herself- Abe’s business was one of falsehoods and lies, and she, as his wife, had been doomed to follow him into this enterprise.

The worst thing was, she might have even considered it possible to live with the black mark of Sin on her soul, had it been for something. Finch, the Ranger who had had the misfortune to be a decent man wishing to protect a lady, but sadly clad in the wrong coat, had died for nothing. She could not have let him live, ever; and she lamented the necessity of his death even more because she had not managed to extinguish the man who had been in the crosshairs of her design.

Simcoe lived.

One would have to arrange with that. The passing thought of poison, the woman’s weapon, crossed her mind, but was dismissed in the same instant. Being shot by Robert Rogers was unfortunate, and showed the expert skill of the rogue outdoorsman.

Being poisoned however within the same week as being shot would raise questions, and make of her a suspect, for who else at Whitehall would kill by usage of poison, but a woman?

Her methods were exhausted now, lest she should invite suspicion. One could only pray the real Robert Rogers would pay a visit to Whitehall and do away with Simcoe.

Tired and unwilling to move from under the blanket whose warmth had afforded her at least a faint idea of the protection and security she craved for herself and her son, she rose and dressed.

Her first visit was to her son; Thomas, already up and in the arms of the tireless Aberdeen, was as ill at ease this morning as his mother, did not want to play, and instead spent the time with his mother climbing into her lap and burying his face in the front of her dress, all while wrapping his arms around her as far as he could, not wanting to let go.

She could not know how much her son had seen, or heard the previous night, and comforted him as good as she could before entrusting him back to his nurse, and going to face those she had evaded the longest this morning.

Richard was seated at the table, taking an unusually early breakfast. Invited to join him, she obeyed for fear of perhaps revealing her guilt as the author and executor of the crimes of the previous night if she refused.

Forcing down some buttered bread and a thin cut of ham against the volition of her nauseous body, she barely listened to Richard, who was talking of the hunt for Rogers like the pompous, fat old statesman he was, who could speak coming from a place of the safest knowledge that no personal sacrifice was demanded of him in the enterprise at hand.

He was like a boastful child to her when he assured her, Rogers would be found and that Wakefield had the sorry remainder of his decimated battalion scouring the woods for traces of the man, and that soon, Setauket would be quite safe again.

Under the table, her hand clenched into a fist with her nails digging deep into her palm in an attempt to control herself and remind her body to keep discipline- if she would start shivering as she had done sitting in the bath last night, Richard would ask questions.

Thus, she nodded along politely, agreeing verbally when it was pertinent and thanking him for the immediate action he had taken to apprehend this horrible, murderous miscreant that were sure to succeed.

Pleased, Richard dabbed his mouth with a napkin and informed her that an army surgeon had been sent for to look at Simcoe’s ear.

In the night, he had not let anybody come near him to inspect the damage done; he had likely done himself more mischief than good by refusing to have his wound tended to.

 _Perhaps the wound might still become infected, and kill him_ , Mary half-hoped, then chided herself for being so godless as to wish death upon a person whom she had failed to kill- it had been God’s will that he had survived, and she had to accept that.

An half-hour later, the surgeon and a sullen orderly, a brawny fellow evidently selected for his strength and capability to hold down a writhing man in the middle of an amputation, arrived.

Richard greeted him, and showed him to Simcoe’s room which they entered after having received no answer after the second knock- only then, following a few paces behind the men, did she realise how close it was to hers. How close she had been to her victim all night.

Contrary to what was expected of Simcoe, and what was known of his habits, the clothes he had worn lay carelessly strewn about the room, having fallen to the floor where they had been disposed of; merely his boots stood in perfect alignment at the foot end of the bed, providing a baffling contrast to the mess of bloodied pocket-handkerchiefs and rags, and discarded clothes strewn about the room.

Paler even than usual from the loss of blood and with a makeshift bandage tied about his head, he was asleep when the men entered, yet wakened almost immediately as if alerted by an animal instinct, and shot them lowering looks from below heavy eyelids.

Richard announced to him that this was Doctor Smyth of the army, come to look at his wound. A courier had been sent as soon as the gravity of his injury had been known, and a brave lad, unafraid of Rogers, had made his way to where the rest of the regular regiment stationed on Long Island was encamped to fetch him.

Mary doubted Simcoe would have let anyone approach him had he been fully awake, but made passive and quite biddable by their surprise coming, he allowed the doctor to approach and even undo his makeshift bandage made from the cover of a cushion he had evidently ripped into long strips, as the quite naked cushion on the floor, not far from where his sash had fallen, indicated.

The bloodied bedclothes surrounding him spoke of how he must have bled during the night, which would account, mixed with the shock of his injury of course, for his relative obedience with the surgeon’s commands.

Hovering with uncertainty, Mary stood in the door and waited to either be dismissed, or receive orders to fetch and bring some additional necessities like bandages or water the surgeon might require.

She did not want to look at him, or be in the same room as he.

“You, Miss-“ (it was to be expected that a man accustomed to being so hard-pressed for time as per his occupation would not have a care for proper address when tending to a patient, whose suffering might be unnecessarily prolonged by exchanges of idle curtsies) “I need water, warm, if you can manage. And your hands, once you return.”

Hot and cold, her blood coursed through her body. The surgeon wanted her to attend, and help. Swallowing hard, she made her way to the kitchen, where luckily, water had already set up by a thoughtful Aberdeen, should the visitor require a hot refreshment.

Returning with a bowl of not yet hot, merely pleasantly warm water, Mary attempted to make herself as invisible as possible behind the broad back of the orderly, yet was found out by the surgeon immediately: “come here, if you please.”

Most likely taking her reticence to approach the wounded man for a supposed female propensity to faint easily at the sight of blood (had ever a man witnessed the birth of a child? She had most certainly not fainted then, and in the time after when she had bled still as her body had restored itself to health), there was no danger emanating from him, he would not suspect a thing.

Besides, she was a woman, and women do not shoot- on a hunt, maybe, but certainly not so, and not aiming on men. She should be quite protected from being found out- for the moment, here in Simcoe’s room, where there was no evidence- the latter was more or less hid in a room a mere couple of doors away.

The surgeon cleaned the wound and surrounding flesh now, having trouble to pull strands of Simcoe’s hair from among the dried blood. He expressed a wish to shave or at least clip it, but Simcoe, now awake enough to put up a protest, told him he would regret it if he did.

Unimpressed, the surgeon replied with a “very well, sir” and cut off a strand falling into the wound no matter what he did with a metallic snip of his scissors, which Mary could not help but think must have irritated Simcoe, so accustomed to bully and intimidate everyone into getting his way, a fair bit.

To her surprise, he fixated a point in the middling distance and bristled with anger, tho’ it was only a low, almost defeated sound.

“He made a right mess of you”, the surgeon commented once he had a clear view of the injury. “What’s off, is off, I am afraid. And some more must come off, too-“

Mary averted looking at the wound but had seen enough to realise what he meant- a part of the shattered ear was still attached, hanging limply and utterly destroyed to a single thread of flesh.

The surgeon ordered for some strong spirits and an additional pair of strong, male hands to complete this task.

“No”, Simcoe tried to talk his way out of the operation he realised awaited him, “I think I shall be quite fine, thank you.”

Mary doubted he realised how little his particular sort of artificial politeness did- Smyth, the Surgeon had likely had many men pleading with him not to dispatch a limb or apply an inevitably painful method to treat their injuries, and must be immune to pleading, crying and, as in Simcoe’s case, thinly veiled unspoken threats conveyed not in his words, but the shrillness of his voice.

While Richard, who had it splendidly easy, having disappeared to search for the stable-hand to come up and assist, was gone, Mary prepared herself for the inevitable scene she would witness. He would cry out, maybe shed tears, maybe try to use force to break free- though even a strong man like he would likely be sufficiently overpowered by the muscular orderly and the stable-hand, apt at submitting to his will much larger and stronger animals than the man on the bed.

He struggled when one man held his torso and hands down, and the other his legs. Luckily, they had at least managed to give him strong drink without force, though it had only been a small glass of sherry.

If Simcoe had any human inclination towards earthly pleasures, it was this particular product of Spanish grapes, to which he could never say no, but would only accept it in small quantities, possibly fearing the loss of control should he over-imbibe on his favourite vice would prove his downfall at the hands of others- a man with so many enemies must necessarily think so.

Quite likely, he thought of the surgeon attending to his ear as a possible threat, too- how easy would it be for his scalpel to slip in an _accident_ and pierce his neck?

-She could, _accidentally_ , nudge Smyth as he worked, and Simcoe would be done away with- but horrified by her own callousness, Mary resigned herself to holding the basin with its no longer clear contents.

It was horrific. Though Smyth’s work was done fairly quickly, for Mary, it could have been hours. She had meant to _kill_ this man, not to _hurt_ him- those were very different things in her mind. She had not wanted to cause more suffering with what she had done, she had wanted to end it.

Naturally, an operation of this kind hurt badly, and the faint screams he tried to hold in reminded her even more acutely that below the ghost-like, pale face with the unnerving eyes was a man not half as indestructible as he liked to view and present himself.

They had wedged a piece of wood coated in a cloth of leather clearly bearing the marks of other sets of teeth that had bitten down on it in agony between his teeth, so he could not bite or swallow his own tongue.

When the main cut was made, and whatever sorry mass of flesh once belonging to his ear was removed, Simcoe’s right arm broke free from the stable-hand’s grip, and reached for the next thing it found to enwrap in its strong, clawing grip.

The basin thudded to the ground as Simcoe’s hand wrapped around her wrist with crushing fervour. Smyth cursed, yet realised there was no use in scolding either the patient or his aide, and merely called for Richard, who had made it an art form to appear diligent when he did nothing of importance at all, to find someone to clean the mess once he was finished.

She could not move, only look at the man in the bed before her, the horrific, bleeding wound; amidst the shock of red hair, not unlike her own; eyes filled with tears she could tell he was ashamed of.

Where the evening before had only been blind rage, was now vulnerability, helplessness- all of which she had created.

His hand held her arm in a desperate grip- desperate like a child’s fearing to be wrenched away from his mother, desperate like a drowning man clinging on to a rope thrown to him by someone on the shore. She did not remove it, or even attempt to.

It was her punishment, her lot to bear, for having inserted herself into the Lord’s plan with the design to end a life she had no right to end.

She had done wrong, and although she had no personal sympathy for the Ranger, the brute Simcoe, she could muster compassion for what he was now; an injured man with nothing to console him as he found himself in great pain.

Once the surgeon was done and the wound bandaged, she slipped as quickly as she could from the room, avoiding the men who had borne witness of it all, too, to be alone in her room.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mary retired, citing a head-ache, an affliction universally known to be a lie or euphemism used by women when they were plagued by something they wished no to speak about. Sitting on her bed while her hands busied themselves knitting a pair of warm socks for Thomas, she stared at the bloodied handprint on the wall until she was convinced it was staring back at her mockingly, giving her ample food for thought. Not strictly about its speedy removal, which would be hard as paint would have to be procured, and she moved out of the room[i], but about the mess she had created. About Simcoe, and what he would turn into once her pity and remorse would dissipate as soon as he would commit the next atrocious deed- he could not be trusted, ever, and perhaps the injury would give him cause for even more of his unhinged wrath, to mete it out among the townspeople at his whim- it would be she who created that monster.

She could still feel his grip on her wrist- he had not left marks or bruising, but the memory of his warm hand holding on to her remained.

One pair of socks had become two; two had become three, and outside, the light had faded. Richard had been respectful enough to leave her be when she had dismissed an invitation to dine with him as well. Somewhat taken aback she had truly managed to spend so much time without having realised how quickly it had passed, she rose and stretched her legs before electing to dress more comfortably in a nightshirt and wrapper, as she should go to bed and attempt to find some sleep soon. But first, knowing how uneasy she would rest this night, she decided to go and find herself a cordial to facilitate falling asleep- if she ever would, that night.

It had been undignified, to be subjected to the view of so many pairs of eyes while in great pain. He felt dirty and ashamed- not from the cold sweat on his skin, but from the glances he felt he would never be able to wash off the face of his mind, the surgeon, who would undoubtedly tell the entirety of the British Army what a weakling Captain Simcoe was, the elder Woodhull, who undoubtedly had liked it, seeing him so, to Mrs Woodhull, Mary- it was best forgotten, he decided, and forced his eyes shut with the intention to fall asleep.

Sleep came, at last; uneasy and devoid of rest, his mind struggled through the hours in which his body reposed from the morning’s cruel shock, but his mind did not.

Plagued by confused dreams in which a selection of the worst images and memories he had hoped to never remember more mixed with the sound of the shot, the feeling of falling, the doctor ‘mending’ what could be mended (would his hearing in his non-ear ever return?) and above all, the painful discovery he had made when having come to again in a pool of his own blood, such was impossible.

He was falling again, deep down a well of blood, from whose bottom the open-eyed, pale corpse of his young brother stared at him. He tried to resist the fall with all his might, then found himself on a battlefield, knowing the enemy was about to open fire, but unable to move his limbs, to save himself, to do or say anything: he wanted to scream, to evade the cannon ball flying his way, but could not and had to watch as it pierced his body until once more, the scenery changed:

This time, he found himself at the end of a dark corridor, walking towards a door. Opening it carefully, he entered the room that lay behind in which a bathtub stood, its contents red, its surface still as a looking glass.

Suddenly, a creature emerged from the hidden depths of this seemingly innocuous enough household item- a creature, no- it was a woman, her hair red as flames, rose from the floods until she stood at full height. The water, or blood, or wine, he could not tell, left no traces on her milk-white skin, only the occasional, jewel-like droplet in her hair.

She was very beautiful, with skin as fair and unblemished as a fresh layer of snow on a winter morning, her breasts very shapely indeed, two almost perfectly round hemispheres, her body slender, but not bony: everything about her appeared to be smooth, edgeless, as if she were an ancient Italian marble sculpture come to life.

Lust rose in him. As confused as he was as to how a woman could first hide, then rise from, below the surface of a tub, then come out of the water completely dry (why was it red in the first place?), his body was certain of the fact he wanted to have her, this Venus who smiled so enigmatically at him, her corral lips promising him things he knew they would never hold, and yet he knew he would not care, do everything to win this goddess’ favour.

It was then he awoke and found himself lying in bed with his head throbbing painfully and his cock begging in no uncertain terms for his attention. Disgusted with his own body, how it, in a moment of utter, sleeping vulnerability could allow itself to be carried away thus, especially after almost having died mere hours before, escaped the realms of his comprehension- perhaps his unconscious mind was so happy on the account of his survival, it had latched itself upon feasting on this basest of male desires.

Quite disgusted with the intemperance of his subconscious, and trying to think of something that would quench his lust rather efficiently rather than giving in to the urge and give himself release (Hewlett’s pathetic _ah_ , voice did the trick quite efficiently), he attempted to regain sleep, yet could not find it as the night fell outside.

It was irrational to think Rogers would return; he would not. The man was clever, he would not put himself into such great personal danger as to return to shoot him dead.

But he was afraid.

It had to remain a secret, of course. He was not _weak_ \- only weak men fear the darkness and the monsters, human or otherwise, that lurk within it. There had been a time in his life when he had been surrounded by persons in whom he could have entrusted these fears, but those days were gone now.

He had to bear his lot.

Solitude was what he had sought for so often; he had never been the jovial sort to seek out company, yet in presently, he craved for it. He did not want to be alone with the high-pitched noise in his head, stemming from the incident, so fresh still- he wondered if his hearing would ever fully return.

It mattered not what was spoken; it mattered not if the person resented him (or he resented the person, for that matter), to be with another person would reduce, in his own thoughts the which he himself identified as irrational, the chance of being attacked by Rogers, who might hide just outside in this very moment-

Having spent the day in his smallclothes[ii], he threw on his banyan to go downstairs. He didn’t feel quite safe upstairs anymore, anyway. Not after the previous night.

The fire had been reduced to glowing embers that still afforded some comforting warmth to Whitehall’s drawing room. Staring into the fireplace, as if she intended to find answers to questions she did not dare to ask in the embers almost like a prophetess of old, Mary asked herself how it would go on from now, everything.

She had failed to protect her husband from Simcoe’s wrath who, once restored to a state of health that allowed him to wreak havoc again, continue to do so. And since she had failed in protecting her husband, she had failed in protecting her son, too.

Her mission had been unsuccessful. What would, could she do next? She knew no answer to that. Other than Abe, or Simcoe, she did not fight for a side, an army with a hierarchy of command from which she could expect orders; not unlike Robert Rogers, who was so conveniently blamed for her failed attempt on Simcoe’s life, she had acted upon her own interests: the protection of her family and the safety and future happiness of her son.

Many a thing could be said about Abe and many a shortcoming listed, but he loved Thomas, and her son should grow up with a father, not with the foul mark of illicitness upon him that his father’s death by Simcoe’s pistol or a gibbet would inevitably mean.

Something else might be attempted to be rid of Simcoe- just what? Complaints of his tyrannical behaviour had been dismissed in New York, it was said. His effectiveness as a commander of men caused the British to turn a blind eye to his cruelty.

Lost in her thoughts, she barely noted the door creak as someone opened it and when she finally did, it was too late: a dark, tall shadow entered and greeted her with a mien and tone as surprised as her own.

“Mrs Woodhull”, Simcoe chimed, “what a surprise to find you here at night.”

Her heart beating ever faster, Mary was unsure what to make of his words, whether he was sincere or not. His voice never sounded quite sincere and it was possible he had found out she had shot him, and was presently toying with her like a cat does with a mouse before killing it.

“Captain Simcoe”, she replied and rose quickly, partly out of courtesy, partly to have it easier to run, should she have to.

“Please, do sit”, the familiar high-pitched voice insisted, robbing her of any chance of a quick retreat to her room. “I didn’t expect to find myself in company tonight.”

“Me neither, Captain.” Mary meant that whole-heartedly. Acutely aware of his every movement, of wherever his bandaged head looked or turned, she watched him pour a glass of Richard’s most costly sherry for himself before he nonchalantly stretched his long limbs in an armchair somewhat closer to the fire than the sofa she had chosen for herself.

“It has kept me up, my injury”, Simcoe went on, evidently unable to sense that Mary was not in the mood for a polite conversation- or that a half-hour past midnight was under no circumstances a time suited to a lively exchange. “I expect you must still be quite affected by the past events, too.”

His piercing blue eyes rested on hers, not so much expecting, but inviting an answer. Clearly, he was thinking of the moment when he had rushed into her room, and found her in the bath, naked and shivering, though it had not been from the shock of seeing him with his face bloodied or having heard a rogue gun shot.

“Yes”, she could answer truthfully before adding, “I am quite afraid of Robert Rogers out there, in the woods- and they have not apprehended him yet.”

“Do not worry, he cannot escape his just punishment forever. You were quite terrified last night, I could tell.”

Not wishing to elaborate on this, or being reminded at all of the events of the night in which she had murdered one man and injured another, she only nodded, hoping he would take it as the silent affirmation of a woman much affected with Shock and Horror.

“It must be quite bad for you”, Simcoe, deaf not only in one ear as he was likely to be but also (though he had had suffered from this affliction ever since she had had the misfortune to come to know him) ignorant of those subtleties of a conversation not directly put into words, but into gestures and miens, rattled on. “As a mother, you must fear for your young son.”

Surprised, Mary took her eyes off the tips of her slippers peeking from underneath her wrapper and looked at him.

Gleaning from her reaction he had struck a chord, he nodded with a smile he thought was compassionate, but in fact was rendered null and void by the unabashed, open stare that would make a statue made of stone feel ill at ease in his presence.

In order to turn the game around somewhat, to gain control of the conversation, Mary once more agreed and posed the same question to him.

“I am not a father”, he negated, much less incensed or affected than Mary would have guessed at this very private question posed to a man ill at ease giving up a shred of information about himself, adding readily: “someday, I hope. He is a sweet little boy, Thomas.”

Mary had not viewed Simcoe playing with Thomas with her own eyes, and only heard the tale related to her afterwards, but to think he had engaged long enough with him to have formed an opinion on her son, worried Mary. And yet, as any mother being complimented on her child, she was proud of her son and inevitably mellowed somewhat to the man sitting across from her on account of his good opinion of her child.

“Tomorrow, I shall search the town for Rogers- and those aiding and abetting him. You shall be safe, Mrs Woodhull, fear not.”

Simcoe rarely sounded sincere when he spoke, but he did so this time. Naturally, his threat to not leave any stone in Setauket unturned gave her cause for worry, but to hear him care, or at the very least pretending to care, he could empathise with her fears, caught her off-guard, giving Simcoe, as she realised in retrospect in the morning, when she allowed the conversation to play out once more in her memory, an advantage to advance and use the room left by her to fill it with affability.

“I was quite concerned to find you in such a state of speechless shock last night and can only assure you to do everything to eradicate the threat that has caused, and still causes, quite evidently, you such sleepless horror.”

Of course, he did not apologise for intruding unannounced.

“Thank you, captain”, she was forced to say as one gives thanks upon receiving an unwanted or inappropriate gift, “I am sure I should feel quite safe already in the knowledge you will protect Whitehall.”

His eyes darkened.

“So I shall. I swear it.”

Unwilling to hear more vows of violence meted out against the townspeople of Setauket and every other misfortunate soul on Long Island Simcoe might lay his hands on, Mary attempted to guide the conversation away from whatever worrying design Simcoe had in mind for Setauket and Long Island in his search for Robert Rogers, whom he supposed to have made an attempt on his life, and enquired after his wound.

“It hurts, yes. I fear my hearing might not be restored fully to me, but that must be expected at the severity of the injury I sustained.”

With no word, Mary sensed, was the early morning to be mentioned, when the surgeon had attended to him.

“I wish you a speedy recovery”, she strung together words known to be nothing more but empty phrases expected to be said in certain situations to maintain a semblance of polite concern, “should you not rest?”

“I cannot sleep”, he confessed, and blinked for the first time during their conversation, or so Mary thought to have noticed. “You cannot sleep either, so we are each in splendid company.”

He took a sip of his glass, against which his forefinger tapped incessantly as he held it. “I am glad to find myself with someone so agreeable a conversationalist as you.”

There was not much Mary remembered after this surprising confession which she had at first taken for the same false, supposedly polite flattery practiced by macaronies and self-proclaimed gentlemen, because when she awoke shortly before dawn lying on the sofa, her feet put up and covered with a blanket she could not recall having taken with her.

At first, she was merely somewhat puzzled, yet once she realised what must have happened, her puzzlement multiplied. Shakily, her mind reeling with the realisation who must have done it and what motive he might have had (or rather, the lack thereof), Mary crept back upstairs, unwilling to have to explain herself to anyone who might find her so.

Before she returned to her own room, she used the fact she was awake to check on her son, and found Thomas fast asleep. She left him with a kiss to his forehead, hoping he felt it, and the love she conveyed with it, in whatever happy dream he found himself in.

As she closed the door to Thomas' room, Mary’s eyes rested on a door opposite to Thomas’- knowing who lay, sleeping, behind it, she could not fight a certain curiosity driven by thankfulness she wished to repay and an odd sensation in her gut she lacked the words to describe, a thrill perhaps, at doing something forbidden or not quite right, she quietly slipped into Simcoe’s room, too.

He was fast asleep, sleeping on his right side to avoid putting any pressure unto his injured side of the head. In the pale first light of the morning, the white wound dressings almost glowed in a bluish tint that caused his face to look even paler as it usually did, and was engaged in a fight for sovereignty over the scene with his indomitable shock of auburn hair. The position of his legs and the abscence of his blanket from his body spoke of the fact he had not rested easily- as a mother, Mary knew how to spot a bad dream before being told about it in the morning.

Oddly affected by this realisation, she took up the blanket which was so cool to the touch, he must not have slept under it for the best part of the night, she stood for a moment, looking down on the sleeping man before her. She could do it now, suffocate him in his sleep using the bunched up covers in her arm, a voice deep within her reminded her half-heartedly and was as quickly dismissed as it had appealed to her mind.

Drawing the covers back over his sleeping form and praying he would not wake to find her with him, she was gone as quickly as if she had never been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a fairly obvious 'borrow' from Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel _Liaisons Dangereuses_ \- there will not quite as many different liaisons in this story as in the novel, but quite a bit of danger as well as cabal and intrigue...
> 
> [i] In the 18th century, paint often contained toxic components like lead. People knew not to sleep or dwell in rooms that had been freshly painted and would subject a room with a fresh coat of paint to a period of airing it before moving in.
> 
> [ii] When a man was dressed only in his smallclothes, he, contrary to what a modern mind might expect at reading the word, was dressed in his shirt, breeches and stockings, which was regarded as being dressed in underwear only. A man was considered to be in his underwear without wearing a coat and waistcoat for outerwear or a banyan for informal homewear.
> 
> As always, I am happy to receive kudos and comment (which author doesn't?) and welcome your opinions, thoughts and criticism.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: wild end notes a bit like [like this](https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a1K3A5Y_460s.jpg)... ;)

He had slept rather badly that night, if at all. His chest, much constricted by the imaginary claws of fear and the very real ones of a lifelong affliction he took trouble to hide[i] had brought him close to suffocation during the night, but he could not have opened the window to let the cool night air in and soothe his lungs, in fear of thus giving Rogers another opportunity to shoot at him.

Thus rendered restless and afeard, he had past the night almost entirely awake. His face presented an even paler colour than it already was on account of the fair complexion that accompanied the striking colour of his hair, his eyes were bloodshot. Coupled with the unkempt hair standing up at all angles and the unshaven state of his features, he looked as dirty and perfectly democratic[ii]\- in grave need to remedy this fact, the only thing he felt like having a semblance of control over, he slowly, but steadily, set to work, preparing the lather and shaving-knife for its morning use.

His hand trembled as he lifted it, so he put the knife down again. He would not do Rogers the favour and accidentally dispatch of his own person while attending to his daily ablutions. In fact, Rogers would do well to observe similar standards of cleanliness- but then, rebels and rogues were not known for their cultivated nature. In the looking-glass before him, reddened, restless eyes stared at him. He looked weak, that was for certain. Yet to shirk his duty and remain abed to sleep during the day to make up for a night spent in uneasy vigil would look even weaker.

Under no circumstance could he be thought of so by the townspeople; if they would not fear him, they might turn on him, and it was well known that Woodhull and any miscreants working for him might attempt that.

No, he would have to strike. And strike today.

At last, he managed to shave, then performed the necessary act of changing the bandages. Since having been so utterly betrayed and involuntarily subjected to a painful operation, he had not let anyone near his wound, to examine it and potentially cause him further pain and embarrassment.

Instead, he had sent two of his men after Smyth to obtain from him, by any means necessary, the material needed to tend to his wound. They had not disappointed him in the speedy completion of their task, and had relayed to him the good surgeon’s instructions on how it ought to be dressed, and that he should be kept at a very low diet, and observe a period of a few days of rest, the latter of which he was most disinclined to comply with. He could not rest, even if he tried.

The wound looked most foul and frightful, and some eschars came off when he tugged at the bloodied lint, which was most unpleasant.

As a youth, he had received much ill-spirited humour on account of his hair[iii] that had therefore oftentimes been cropped close to the skull and covered with a wig, yet once the wound would be sufficiently healed, it would help him greatly by concealing the doubtlessly ugly scar he would be left with.

It was but a paltry comfort; at least, should no inflammation of the blood develop, he would live, and not be a total cripple.

One of his godfather’s nephews, Samuel, had been shot in the arm in the last year by a drunken soldier, and the utterly destroyed limb had required amputation[iv]. There had been much pity in the family, as the circumstances had been so misfortunate, and the result was so grave. At least he could still hold a musket and shoot, and did not require a person to sit beside him at every meal to cut it for him like a child’s.

At least he was not utterly helpless against the very real miscreants of the day, and had only to fight those terrors of the night, that had kept up Mrs Woodhull as well.

The poor woman was to be pitied, to be so defenceless left with an uncaring husband and raising her son alone. It was abhorrent to see that a father, who was not by Fate or Necessity torn from his family, neglected his duty so deploringly and left those he was meant to protect so vulnerable to danger.

It had been his natural instinct to make certain Mrs Woodhull was unharmed in those critical moments so shortly after he had woken on the floor and discovered his injury. Never had it been his intention however to intrude so rudely upon a lady- he had quite forgotten she had ordered a bath to be prepared, and merely assumed in his state of shock, anger and fear, that since he had not seen her anywhere else in the house, she had to be in her chamber, perhaps fearfully clutching her infant son to her chest, her arms wrapped about him to protect the babe should a vengeful Rogers intrude and find them.

He had known how it had been with his mother; she had loved him dearly and bestowed him with affection sufficient for two parents, and often protected him more than necessary from the world and its dangers, however small; young Thomas must naturally hold a very similar place in his mother’s heart.

The shock on her face upon seeing him so bloodied and viewing her unclothed body had made her speechless with Shock- for a moment, he had mistaken it for some darker design at play, almost as if she were a witness in a trial withholding critical information, but after having given the matter some afterthought, it was evident she had merely been shocked at the sight of the blood and quite embarrassed to be seen in a state of nakedness by a man who was not her husband.

-Not that he had seen much besides her bent knees and the softly rounded onsets of her submerged breasts, luckily covered by the linen sheet lining the tub. Of course it was only natural that a woman of good reputation and breeding like her should want to cover herself, and shield her delicate body against the bloody sight and steely gaze of the rude intruder.

Somewhat piqued she had not expressed concern at seing him so grievously injured right away, he understood now, in a more rational state of mind, why it had been so. She must have been further distressed from being apart from her son in such a situation of sheer horror, yet could not go to him, lest she, naked and helpless, might attract the attention of a possible intruder and thus put her child and herself into even greater danger.

In fact, he had now quite reversed his position especially on account of his horrid operation and her attendance; it had been shameful, to show such weakness and pain, especially in the presence of a lady whose sensibilities must have been greatly strained already at seeing so much blood, but she had held out with fortitude, even when he had involuntarily gripped her arm in a desperate, subconscious search for what little comfort was possible in such horrible circumstances.

He thought highly of her for that; he valued strength, and her show of fortitude had surpassed those of the cowardly men she was eternally tethered to by the politics of insensible fathers.

It had done him good, not having been alone the other night, and she must have felt the same, for at last, Mrs Woodhull had fallen asleep, probably from exhaustion. He had then covered her body with a blanket (as if he could undo having surprised her in the bath), and crept upstairs, so as not to wake her, but not before having stoked the fire by adding another piece of wood, so she would not be cold in the morning- she was quite delicate after all, and would easily fall prey to a cold.

The trust she had shown him by letting down her guard so profoundly, allowing him to view her help- and defenceless, did not go unnoticed, as it was an act of utmost honesty.

Perhaps Mary Woodhull, though no ally or even friend, was the only person to be trusted in this nest of treasonous snakes, weasels and weaklings.

They had buried Fitch quietly a few days later. A loyalist reverend had been found a few towns over to officiate, but other than Simcoe and his men, nobody was invited (or wished to, for that matter) attend the funeral.

Their unwanted houseguest, her first victim, had worn a sombre mien at breakfast that day when her second was to be buried. Fitch had been kind, had only tried to save her in a situation he had inevitably identified as great danger to life and limb, and had paid for his kindness with his own. The Rangers, though captained by the roughest, most brutal individual to have a commission in the British army, were men like any other; good men, bad men, honest ones, dishonest ones. In that, they were no different from the British, Hessian, and Continental soldiers.

She wished she could find atonement for her sin, or at least make peace with it somehow, but that, she sensed, would only come with time.

Fitch had been an unnecessary, unfortunate casualty in a scheme that did not concern him- whereas if she would have shot Simcoe, she would not have felt as much remorse as she did for the murder of the Ranger private.

-A phantasy that became increasingly desirable, tempting her to make another winter squash pie.

Whitehall was, or would be, one day, her house. It belonged to her father-in-law and as the only female inhabitant, she was responsible for the household and entertainments, and keeping a good table.

Naturally, she had the right to seek peace and solitude in the evening by the dying drawing room fire when Richard had long gone to bed, and she could not yet sleep with her mind occupied by fearful thoughts of Abe’s dealings, Thomas’ future, and the bloodshed for which she would bear the full responsibility before her God one day.

Perhaps, thinking on it, Simcoe’s coming to join her every night was a divinely-appointed punishment for her crime.

His nightly presence by the drawing-room fire had at first seemed like a coincidence; yet after the third, fourth, seventh time, it had become his habit and to her cause for great, though silent, vexation.

He drank Richard’s sherry and read his papers; elected how many pieces of wood would be added to the fire to keep it burning and sometimes, curiously pacing up and down, would take up things from the mantelpiece or books from the shelves and inspect them with the curiosity of a historian who has come upon alien artefacts of a long-lost people.

It would irritate her greatly when she could not face him directly- at least so, she could always have an eye on him- after all, he was, like her, no stranger to violence and unforeseen assaults. But often enough, he would reduce himself to a long, looming shadow behind her back, pace up and down, then take something from the shelf, inspect it, offer a comment or two usually aimed to belittle Richard in one way or another, then sit down again, thinking himself full of wit.

He was a nuisance.

Like a child much taken for days with the same game of pretend, he would come and join her by the fire, his body enwrapped in a burgundy-red banyan that spoke of his taste for the finer things in life, which contrasted the rough living and ungentlemanly behaviour he exhibited when out with his Rangers. With his long legs nonchalantly outstretched and crossed, he gave the impression of being, or worse, perhaps _considering_ himself the master of the house.

She did not want to view him- at least not on his terms. On some days, driven by guilt sprung from an upright conscience and a lifelong devotion to the Church and its principles coupled with her general dislike for the man who through his survival now continued to pose a threat to her family, she could not bear his countenance, could not bear to view him with his bandaged head that reminded her of the gruesome mess that lay underneath, and which she had caused.

Not that Simcoe cared; he could not tell, the man was about as perceptive as Richard’s large favourite armchair, and about as hard to overlook or ignore.

The pale, ghost-like apparition (an impression only fortified by the billowing silk enshrouding him) reminded Mary of why she had done what she had done. It had been necessary to _try_. It had been pertinent someone did. When he would strike next, and what damage he could do could not be predicted; of Hewlett, only lately departed, and his successor Wakefield, it could be expected that as by their regular uniform and personal adherence to standards of gentlemanly conduct, they would not threaten to raze the town, impale a man on the gratings of a fireplace, torch a barn and threaten to one seemingly random victim decapitation with an axe.

All these things had been done by Simcoe in the past few days, or so Mary had heard from Aberdeen, who had gone into Setauket proper to attend to her mistress’ business there, collect a few items of necessity and a pair of shoes that had wanted mending from the cobbler.

To know that the same man elected to sit with her every night, pretending at gentility as he did, perplexed, enraged and worried her in equal measure. On the one hand, those tales should caution even an able-bodied, strong, armed young man against passing time in the company of Simcoe, this vile, malevolent spectre, however involuntarily; on the other, she could not claim he had done her any harm, or given her reason to fear for her personal safety- but then, one could never know.

She would be on her guard in ways Robeson or de Jong had not been. In her basket, in which she carried her mending and sewing work about, lay concealed a dirk taken from a chest that had long gone unopened for its painful memories to the family; it had belonged to Thomas, who would surely approve of his one time-bride defending herself, or so she told herself.

Perhaps she could not kill him, but she could make it plain, if necessary, that she would not endure his bullying and intimidation, and that, if pressed, she could well defend herself.

However, her precaution had so far proven unnecessary; he never even mentioned with a single word what he did during the day, and instead bestowed her with his curious, irregular kind of what he undoubtedly thought was affability expressed by unnerving, thin smiles and the rudely direct, piercing stare when they conversed.

Mary wanted nothing to do with him. To know those long, immaculately clean fingers wrapped around the spine of a book or curled elegantly around the stem of a glass of sherry had been at some point during the day blood-drenched, smeared with the remnants of the lives and livelihoods of innocent persons wrongfully suspected by the same man before her of crimes they had never committed made her nauseous.

The Lord God had decided upon Simcoe’s survival when he had given him an idea, a sudden inspiration to rise from his supper to go upstairs, where her shot had by necessity been less accurate than if she would have been able to aim for his head straight through the ground floor window. The Lord had not thwarted her in that he had diverted her ball; Mary knew full well that even an expert marksman with many years of military experience would likely have fared no better than her at that angle and distance, knew that she had done her utmost and to that length succeeded in her task: the Lord had no quarrel with her for the attempt on Simcoe’s life (Fitch’s death might be another matter), but he had still designs for Simcoe, and thought him to some end or other useful to this world, which had to be accepted.

Resigning herself to her fate of having to tolerate the pale shadow across from her, she concentrated on the stockings and shirt she was mending for Abe when her spectral companion addressed her- as always without having been given any encouragement or indication that his talk would be welcome.

“Should not a husband separated by bed and board from his wife care for his own mending?”, he enquired. “I should hardly believe it is your duty to mend for him the things he has damaged by his own doing”, he added, and made Mary’s stomach turn.

He could never know how much, and to what extent, she had attempted to _mend_ Abe’s affairs.

As if by some dark power able to sniff out the topic she would hate most to talk about, he prattled on like an idle popinjay: “My ear, I think, it is mending, too. Or what is left of it. It still gives me pain, and I do not hear so well as before, but I consider myself fortunate.”

His voice had changed; speaking more quietly, softly, Mary was aware he was conversing with her on a matter he wished to confide to someone about, but had no way or courage to do it- and therefore told her, as he had, for some reason, made her out as the most likely listener to his tale, perhaps thinking she would judge him least for showing what he undoubtedly classified as a weakness.

“It is good to hear that you are better”, she managed to say, “and will be soon restored to sufficient health in order to venture out and search for Rogers elsewhere on Long Island- he can hardly have come far.”

“You wish me gone?”, he replied bluntly.

Of course she did. Since killing him had failed and she doubted anybody else would succeed in it, she wished him as far away from her and her family as possible. However, telling him to his face even more directly than her somewhat frustrated previous comment might not be politick. As if searching for something in her basket of needlework, she furtively slipped her hand below Abe’s shirt, ascertaining herself that the dirk was there, should she need it.

“I did not mean it quite like-“

“Of course you do”, she was being interrupted. “My presence has brought danger unto you and your son by way of Robert Rogers. It cannot be held against you that you should wish me gone, as I am sure is the opinion most commonly held around these parts by many persons.”

-Perhaps, then, he should think about why people crossed to the other side of the road whenever he was near, Mary thought privately, as the reason so evidently lay with himself.

Relieved however his reaction had been surprisingly less irked and irritated than she had expected, she nodded. “My boy, he is very dear to me. To have Thomas so close to danger-“ Knowing Simcoe had for some odd reason a distinct weakness for her son and the plights of motherhood, she played along to the melody set by him, “no mother could wish that.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Nothing less than what my own mother wrote to me, God rest her.”

What could she say to that? Express the novelty of the idea that a fiendish creature like him could be of women born? Express condolences for a death that could, to her knowledge, have happened two decades or more ago? Act sympathetic?

Electing to speak diplomatically rather than with emotion, she concurred: “Every woman must naturally fear for her son.”

“As every wife must stand by her husband”, Simcoe retorted and once more pointed at the needlework in her lap.

Mary, praying Simcoe had not noticed, shifted uneasily in her seat.

“I consider myself bound by a vow I took in the presence of our Lord and Men. I shall uphold my end of it, for the sake of my son, my soul, and my good name.”

“And so you are, by the law as well- much as it may be unjust, the law usually favours the husband in cases of Divorce or Separation- especially when _crim. con_. might be alleged or children involved, regardless of his own adherence to the very same vow on the basis of whose violation on the woman’s part the court-battle might be fought.”[v]

She had never had a choice, which strangely, the man whom she had intended to kill on account of this very fact seemed to understand best. However, her marriage was not up for discussion with a man who had chased another man’s sweetheart- and besides, Simcoe could hardly count as a moral advisor on anything.

“We are all bound by our Duty -and Love”, she added, thinking of stressing once again the motherly, caring aspect of wifehood he seemed to enjoy viewing so much. It was all a theatre-play on her end; she would play to satisfy his curiosity and expectations, which in turn would at least grant her some measure of peace.

Simcoe appeared to think for a moment, in which he arranged the flood of silk around him with twitching fingers.

“Though it is debatable if a husband such as your own, a treasonous character at that, is deserving of the love of his wife”, he addressed her, and totally oblivious he was intruding into matters his long nose had no business in. If he thought his by all accounts professional dislike of Abe could be used to endear himself to her, he was mistaken. He had meant what he had said as a compliment, and expected her to react accordingly, she could tell. She would not give him what he wanted, and speak plainly to him.

“My marriage, Captain, is no subject for debate”, she retorted bluntly, and thought once again of the dirk within reach. “If there be love or not, it concerns none but the two persons within that union.”

He listened quietly, seriously and took his time to form a reply: “I must offer my you my apologies then, seeing as it was never my wish to upset you”, he chimed in that despised voice that was, in Mary’s imagination, what Italian castrati must sound like- eerie, not like a man, and not like a woman, and not like a child either. “I merely thought the unfair imbalance obvious; you mend, attend to his child, put up with his father-“ (in that, she could for once, and only once, readily agree with Simcoe. Richard was an insufferable, self-righteous old man.) “and bestow him with indulgent love, whereas he-“

“Not unlike you did Mrs Strong.”

The words were out before Mary had been able to make careful consideration, and immediately realised she had spoken in haste, and come close to endangering herself. Alone with Simcoe downstairs, it would take Richard upstairs or Aberdeen in her garret some time until they would hear her scream for help, should-

With his head cocked, he looked at her, silently, could likely see the hot flush of indignation on her chest and cheeks, and tell her ire from her gaze.

His brow furrowed, his muscles tensed. For one moment, Mary was certain he would come upon her in his anger, but the dreaded attack, the tiger jumping his prey, never came. Instead, the war-clouds that had darkened his mien vanished as quickly as they had come, and a more pensive expression took the place of foreboding anger.

“Not quite unlike another, both cases, yes. She has fine eyes, and delicately-turned limbs she moves with a rustic kind of grace”, he elaborated, and to Mary’s astonishment sounded more like a matronly mother assessing her son’s dancing-partner’s suitability for marriage at an assembly than the fierce man of war before her.

“It was a passing kind of affection, fleeting in all aspects”, he volunteered further effectuations of his innermost thoughts which Mary, tiring of their talk and having to be constantly on her guard, could have done without, “I put it to you, Mrs Woodhull, that there are different kinds of Love known to man, some rarer, others more common.”

After an artificial pause he filled with yet another sip of sherry before he allowed his hand to absent-mindedly toy with the empty glass, Simcoe elaborated further: "The pleasure of a fine view is easy to find and must therefore be classified as the meanest kind of attraction or affection. And a fair face might appear even fairer when it is considered forbidden fruit, to be plucked from a long-standing adversary’s orchard.”

Simcoe apparently considered himself to be Eve in the Garden of Eden- personally, she had thought him more like the snake, as his hissing little voice indicated.

Yet however she wished to discredit his musings, she could not help but find secret gratification in them, as now, she had a man’s opinion on Anna Strong, and one who had broken with his infatuation with her at that. To think, no, even to know, that she was no invincible siren but a woman of flesh and blood whose allure lay in the forbidden nature of having her, gratified Mary immensely.

Anna had cast a shadow over her life as Simcoe did over the drawing room carpet, had always been there, somewhere at the back of Abe’s head, or hers. In the beginning of her marriage, she had continuously asked herself if perhaps she was at fault, if she had done something, or done it wrong, to drive him into the arms of his old sweetheart, then mistress.

Slowly, when she had realised she had no power or influence over the affair that had even progressed when she had been heavy with child, the bitter knowledge had naturally stoked her secret resentment of her husband’s philandering and the woman he committed it with.

“But”, Simcoe interrupted her thoughts with an air of self-importance that made it plain he considered himself a great philosopher, perhaps the greatest one that ever lived, “while such commonly found handsome aspects in a person may captivate the eye, they rarely do the heart and merely produce a momentary semblance of what we call Love, a fog-like passing infatuation, one-sided, most of the time. True love requires a union of the mind. It is well and good if there is beauty, but it is worthless on its own if one cannot speak and think alike. One would fall foul of the fairest face if her conversation were dull and her opinions contrary to one’s own, I expect.”

The red-haired Voltaire looked at her expectantly. “Is it not?”

“I could not know”, she ended his evident search for approval of his theory, “I was married at twenty-one to Abraham and have been ever since.”

“Married, yes, and you are to be commended for your constancy”, Simcoe agreed, still gesturing with the glass in his restless hand, “But that is not what I asked. Have you never glanced twice at a gentleman solely because you approved of his handsome features, and have you never been engaged in a conversation with one whose words touched your soul? Or have you forbidden yourself to even entertain such thoughts because you considered them very like adultery?”

Mary could only sit, and say nothing. Unexpectedly, he had struck a chord, and she was unwilling to give him the gratification of a correct guess (had he been guessing at all?).

It was true; she had kept true to her vows and felt deep shame whenever, at passing a young man in an officer’s coat, and thought of her late fiancé.

Instead of Thomas, the dashing captain who had made her laugh on the day they had first met and whose courteous, but easy nature had left her with a favourable impression of the man she had been destined to marry and that had only multiplied when eventually following Thomas’ untimely, tragic demise, she had been married to his unwilling younger brother.

“I sometimes wished- I wished Abraham to be more like- wished he were Thomas, his older brother, to whom I was affianced before his untimely death. When mourning had been observed, Mr Woodhull offered my father Abe in his stead.”

Simcoe, who had leaned forward throughout their conversation, allowed himself to sink back into the chair, and smiled feebly.

“You see, Mrs Woodhull, we have both been lost in the fog.”

Glancing at her clasped hands in her lap, Mary did not know what to say, or how to proceed. The Simcoe she had come to encounter that night, who had cross-examined her almost, then admitted to his own errors- well, at least the one in judgement he had made when he had pursued Anna Strong- was quite different from the man the town was afraid of. He was still recognisably _Simcoe_ , but not- it was hard to put into words, or even one concise thought. She wondered how the man before her or the man she had provided sudden solace to at his operation could fit in the same body of the brute, bully, oppressor. She could not call him a murderer- for she was herself one and therefore in no position to pass judgement on a man whose acts of brutality were protected by the order of a government which in its turn depended on a divinely-appointed King.

Visibly troubled by her silence, he set the glass his hands had been toying with aside and concentrated on the words he wished to put into a little speech, which she could tell from his nervous tap of the forefinger against his thigh.

“My father, Mrs Woodhull, was a naval man, like my godfather; I was not destined for the Navy on account of my bad health as a youth. Nevertheless, both men would chastise me greatly were they to know I was ever lost in the fog without a compass. I see now it was a wise choice of my godfather to counsel my mother against sending her son to sea; what a poor officer a captain without a compass would have made.”

“But you are a captain without a compass”, Mary retorted, sensing he was joking and dared to venture so far as to further his self-depreciating jest by pointing out the homonymy of these two distinct ranks in the army and navy.

For a moment, he stared at her, surprised, with the usual unblinking, unsettling gaze she knew only too well, then chuckled (a high-pitched, unnatural sound), which set his features into a hitherto unknown state of lively animation, exchanged stony coldness and practiced affectation for a slight flush on his cheeks, which might have been due to the sherry he had taken and a softer gaze that ended with him blinking as he averted her own after a short while, almost like a shy child.

“Indeed. I was. Good night, Mrs Woodhull.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in the process of writing a fic must be in want of improving the original plot. ;)  
> Definitively counting myself among that number, I've always asked myself a) how did Simcoe 'conveniently' forget about his multi-season crush on Anna, b) why on earth is the bloodthirsty ginger character named after a historical dude who was so scupulous he found ways to incentivise taking prisoners rather than killing the enemy and c) why o why is Mary still loyal to Abe and putting herself into danger for him when their marriage clearly isn't the best and he has cheated on her since day one?  
> So I had to do something about this.
> 
> One of the things I don’t buy and always thought was very clumsily done is the villain-origin story Show!Coe divluged to Caleb in season 4, and here is why: there is no point in naming a character after an historical counterpart if there is to be no similarity at all (I still think Turn’s Hewlett bears a striking resemblance to the real Simcoe, though, but that’s another story).  
> Secondly, I don’t believe in simple, ill-crafted bad-guy narratives like “people in India killed my dad, now I’ve got to kill people in America to avenge him”.  
> Historically, his father was a naval officer who didn't even die a violent death, but fell victim to pneumonia while stationed off the Canadian coast, with his wife and at this time two very young children living in Northamptonshire. The historical counterpart of Turn's villain was plagued by the sad knowledge he couldn’t even recall what his father had looked like all his life. Even as an adult with children of his own, he tracked down documents, letters, anything with a link to his father in order to try and get to know him, perhaps revive a long-lost memory.  
> I find it much more interesting and credible that a young child, perhaps at first told some supposedly comforting lie about his father’s whereabouts, might have come up with the Black Hole of Calcutta-story as a narrative to for some reason or other cover the real circumstances of his father’s death, but that’s only my kitchen psychology.  
> Additionally, had he truly been born in India, his middle name wouldn't make any sense because his godfather, an Anglo-Irish captain, later admiral, in whose honour he was named “Graves” never set foot onto Indian soil.  
> To further my argument that Show!Simcoe might, could or should be more closely related to his historical counterpart, his drinking/eating habits piqued my interest as they reminded me of 18th century health advice on how to treat asthma- which the historical Simcoe was plagued by and ultimately died of.  
> His fictionalised counterpart is only ever seen eating and drinking very small amounts, which I thought was interesting- here's an excerpt from a book on common medical problems and how to treat them from the 1780s (first edition 1769):  
>  _Strong liquors of all kinds, especially malt-liquor, are hurtful. The patient should eat a very light supper, or rather none at all, and should never suffer himself to be long costive._ (from: W. Buchan, _Domestic Medicine_ , chapter XL _Of the Asthma_ , second edtion 1785.)  
> ...Sooo, theory: Turn!Simcoe is asthmatic, which is why he skipped most of Mary's supper of delicious winter squash pie and thus unwittingly saved his own life. 
> 
> TL;DR: this is my fic, and I, nerd that I am, will have some semblance of occasional historicity by combining the fictionalised character with the equally interesting historical person he was named for better or worse, named after. 
> 
> i See above…  
> ii “democratic” was used as an invective in his godfather’s house by the latter’s wife and ward, denoting a broad sense of rebelliousness against the law, demoralisation, and uncultivatedness. Might have picked this (along with his prissy way of holding a teacup) up from his formidable ‘auntie’…  
> iii In the 18th century, red hair was extremely unfashionable. For instance, Marie Antoinette, whose hair was suppsedly a reddish blonde colour, was made fun of by Madame du Barry as „La Petite Rousse“ („The Little Ginger“) on account of her hair.  
> iv Samuel Graves (1741-1802) lost his arm in the manner described in the story. Simcoe was quite close to these “cousins”- his favourite was Thomas, who would later become Nelson’s second-in-command at Copenhagen. Almost all of them had some kind of distinguishing scar(s) related to their service.  
> v After a stint in Eton that ended with the Eton Rebellion of 1768 in which he very likely participated (he tried to remain vague in his letters but a friend’s letter to him gives him away), he went to Oxford and studied law for a year before joining the army, which is reflected in his legal musings.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simcoe fails miserably at trying to appear non-threatening, inadvertently sparking friction at Whitehall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning of the day: Latin. ;-)
> 
> ...And if you're wondering where the end notes have gone, I've found out how to link them, which requires me putting them at the bottom of the story. It's all for your reading pleasure (I hope) as it allows jumping seamlessly between text and notes.

The weather promised a fine transition from autumn to winter the following week: with the hoarfrost-covered trees and meadows glittering in the pale light of the morning sun, all the world seemed tranquil and innocently wondrous. The glittering light dancing in the frost-covered trees reminded Mary of games of pretend she had played as a little girl, in which the seemingly bejewelled world outside her bedroom window had been an ancient fairy-land.

Even Setauket and the horrid events of not too long ago appeared in part affected by the beauty of a world that had come to be so greatly contested among its own inhabitants; it was not the British Army alone who opposed Washington, there were many loyalist men born and bred in the Colonies as well, desirous of safeguarding their homesteads and livelihoods from a future the likes of Abe and his companions fought for.

Born into a staunchly loyalist family, Abe’s political leanings had always irked her, though before the war, it had been easier to conceal her displeasure. It was quite simply not a wife’s place to question her husband on matters that did not concern her, and nothing would look as impertinent and be as bad as a woman talking politics.[i] Which, however, did not mean she possessed no opinion at all; she merely concealed it, or rather, presented herself as apathetic to the wider scope of the contrary positions currently prevalent in order to please Abe as well as Richard.

It was always the men who defined a woman’s fate. Her father had selected her groom, and Abe, though weaker than his father, and Richard were the compasses by which she had to sail in order to remain secure at Whitehall, fed and clothed. With one pointing west and the other east however, Mary found herself partisan to whatever faction currently was favoured by fate, and could provide security for herself and Thomas. As she would not wish to see Thomas turned out in the miserly hut Abe currently inhabited, especially not in winter, she tried to please Richard as best as she could now that upon Simcoe’s insistence during his initial search for Rogers she had returned, yet had two years ago also helped Abe conceal the murder of the unfortunate Mr Baker in order to save her family from shame and him from the gallows.

If she could choose, the war ought to end soon with the re-installation of law and order, and suitable punishments being dealt to those insurrectionists who had provoked it. Then everything could be peaceful again, at least when the dust of the soldiers marching to battle would finally settle, and life could, like a river after a flood, return to its natural course without the necessity of keeping secrets or the deaths of so many good, young men in battle. Good men like Thomas. Abe should know better; his brother had been one of the first victims of the already stewing conflict, and yet he persisted in pursuing those radical ideas.

But of course, no-one would ask the opinion of a woman in such matters- and Mary was certain she was not alone, given they all were mothers, sisters, daughters of men and the country the latter fought over in this embittered war.

Upon the glory of wintry splendour followed fog and heavy rains within the same week, washing away the delicate beauty and replacing it with the merciless drumming of rain on the roof and brown sludge where before icy jewels had glistened in the sun.

A mere two days before the weather had turned, Simcoe had set out with the Rangers to finally find Rogers. Mary was relieved to see him set out on this wild goose chase she had created and welcomed the sudden quietness in the house.

She had come to not quite resent his presence in the evenings by the fire as much as she initially had, but her conscience felt at greater ease with her almost-victim out of sight, and at least temporarily, out of mind, too.

Therefore, it came as a great surprise when on the second day of the Rangers’ absence from Setauket (lunch had just been served and Richard had lifted the first forkful off his plate), they heard the door open and fall shut again with greater force than necessary. Alarmed, she called out for Aberdeen with the instruction to remain with Thomas in the latter’s room, and rushed to the hall, closely followed by Richard, where they found a very tall, and very drenched, spectre trying to get off his wet gloves.

Simcoe was in an extremely foul mood, so much his face gave away, and wet to the point muddy puddles formed around his boots with impressive speed. Had she not known how dangerous the man was, or could be, she would have laughed- with his frown and the wet hair clinging to his forehead, he reminded her of a very large housecat surprised by a pail of water after having taken too keen an interest in the neighbour’s gooslings. 

“Fine weather, this”, he commented in lieu of a greeting and continued after a short pause in which he tried to swallow a very obvious cough, “I require a bath. Fresh clothes, too.” Sniffing the air like a dog on the trail of a fox, he lastly added “I shall leave you to your luncheon”, before disappearing upstairs, leaving a muddy trail on the stairs.

Quite cured of their appetite with their unwelcome houseguest having returned so unexpectedly, neither Mary nor Richard could muster much interest for the cooling mutton, knowing Simcoe‘s foul moods had the propensity to cloud the entire house- even more so now that he had not found the quarry he had chased and even had to break off his search on account of bad weather.

The rest of the afternoon proved uneventful; there was nothing much to be done, so Mary decided to join Richard in the parlour, to sit with him and perhaps mellow him somewhat to her concerns. To do what she had long desired to, burying the bloodied clothes she had worn on the day she had become a murderer, was out of the question now. Two days ago, the ground had been frozen and shovelling a suitable pit would have been impossible; now, with Simcoe back in the house, doing so was even more out of the question.

She would have to get rid of these things somehow, she kept telling herself, yet was unsure how to proceed. She had hoped to find some respite and clarity of mind regarding what her next steps should be in Simcoe’s absence, but this plan had been ruined by his sudden reappearance.

He had to sleep sometime or other- but the problem of his Ranger sentinels, which he kept surrounding the house during the night, remained. She could put it all in a basket, hide the damning evidence of her crime under another pie or other such items a concerned wife might take to her exiled husband, and try to set it all ablaze at Abe’s hut- but then, Simcoe probably kept a close eye on him as well.

How long would she be able to live so? With a secret that could be uncovered any moment either by accident or design, and was amply supported by evidence? Once her bloodied clothes and the handprint on the wall would be linked to the murder of Fitch, the question whether she had attempted to undo Simcoe would not even be asked.

Wakefield, a man who rigidly adhered to notions of soldierly and personal honour, might not hang her, but she would die for her crime[ii], leave Thomas motherless and in the care of her father-in-law and husband, both whom she did not wish to have her son and mould him after their own distorted self-image.

She would be a dark stain on her son’s name, exactly what she had tried to prevent from happening through Abe, a source of ignominy and shame- had she succeeded in killing Simcoe, her husband’s faction would have lauded her as the Israelites had lauded Judith[iii] for her bravery when she had presented the besieged town of Bethulia with the head of Holofernes, who had almost subjugated the besieged town, had not Judith bravely taken matters into her own hands and used her feminine wiles to charm the general, and cut off his head while he slept.

-Or Yael, who in a similar feat killed the general Sisera by nailing his head to the ground with a forceful blow of a mallet.[iv]

How ironic that the story of Yael was, if she remembered correctly, in the Book of Judges. Setauket’s judge would personally see her prosecuted and punished would he know what she had done, even if they were united in their wish to be rid of Simcoe.

She was no Yael or Judith, and had to accept that. She had wanted Simcoe’s head and merely gotten his ear, and taken the life of a man doing only his duty. She had attempted, perhaps subconsciously inspired by these stories that had only recently recaptured her attention in moments of personal religious study and contemplation, to do as these women had done, and perhaps not failed entirely, but had been divinely prevented from executing her plan to the full, and would have to find a way to live in her very own Bethulia while Simcoe and his Rangers were in it.

At present, she could only entrust herself into the care of the Lord, through prayers and contemplation and hope that He would listen, and safeguard her from detection while she had covered the handprint close to the doorframe with the silhouette of a cousin; she had lastly met her when they had booth been girls and the place so close to the doorframe was an odd choice to display a picture, but at least, this most permanent piece of damning evidence was gone from view now.

He sat in bed, his knees drawn up under the blanket to provide a lectern for his book. Turning a page, he was reminded of how he had found similar moments of quietude to read under trees or in hidden little nooks at school, where he, undisturbed by those more raucous characters among the Etonians, had immersed himself in the world of the ancients.

Even now, the world of those revered antecedents fascinated him; when two years ago Gibbons’ _Decline and Fall **[v]**_ had come into publication, he had naturally had a copy procured for himself in England, and sent to Setauket- Sodom-on-the-Sea was not a place exactly abounding with the inquisitive spirit of Science and Thought (and military strategy, for that matter), that had made Rome great, and people here had little use for anything that did not in some way relate to their daily toil and was thus deemed ‘useful’, their past-times being petty crime and incestuous relations, as he had only recently uncovered.

The ordeal of his search for Rogers weighted heavily on his breast, the cold and rain had not been quite pleasant and reminded him of the cursed weakness he had inherited from his father. With nothing to do and quite sure Setauket’s populace had in recent days been reminded sufficiently of his power over that wretched place, he sank into the cushion and indulged into the lofty, Lucullan pleasures of the mind only texts in the Latin could give him, and hoped to at least forget, among the generals and battles of days long gone by, for a moment that he was no Caesar, but a Cato, ceaselessly attempting to convince his superiors that _ceterum censeo Carthaginem_ (or rather, _Setaukem_ ) _esse delendam **[vi]**_ and doing his utmost to one day achieve that goal.

 _Delere_ was, by the way, the right verb to describe what he would like to do with the Weasel, too _. Necare, occidere, interficere, caedere, exanimare, tangere, corporare, enecare, enicare, funerare, interemere, interimere, jugulare, letare_ and _mortificare **[vii]**_ would be other ways to describe the same sentiment just as effectively.

Brushing the thoughts of what he would like to do with the younger Woodhull aside, he allowed himself to become immersed in his book again, forgetting about Sodom-on-the-Sea, the sleepless nights he still detested, his ear and the wretched Woodhulls when from the corner of his eye, he could espy the door opening a crack wide.

Always prepared for an attack, he sat up straighter in bed, then reached for his nightstand, where his bayonet rested- it was unlikely Rogers should show his face in this place again, but one could never know. Any person with no sinister intentions would knock- to skulk, open the door inch by inch in order to not let the victim notice it is being intruded upon, that was the work of a miscreant.

A mere moment later, the door opened a good deal more, and revealed to him a tiny, fair-haired person.

“ _Thomas_ ”, he breathed, half-admonishing the child, half-admonishing himself for having thought a vile attack awaited him when in truth, he had taken up his bayonet defending himself from an innocent babe.

“Where is Miss Aberdeen, hm?”, he asked the little one who grinned at him mischievously. The woman was burdened with too many duties, and Simcoe doubted she was paid accordingly, if at all. The Judge probably prided himself with being a resourceful man, but was in truth unnecessarily pernicious- he for one would hate to know the person charged with caring for his, any child for that matter, was performing a host of other duties that inevitably detracted from the first.

“Again!”, the little one demanded, and he knew exactly what he meant. Having rocked him on his knee once before, Thomas demanded the same again now, of course not understanding his reluctance in permitting him this joy.

The last time he had done it, he had done so while lying in wait for the child’s useless grandfather or overworked nurse to find him- hoping very much for the former, as he had happened upon a little epistle he very much wanted to read to the old man rather sooner than later.

In fact, while it had been his design to protect Mrs Woodhull from Rogers, he had also taken her to Whitehall to have another pair of eyes to look after the child, who must miss his mother greatly, though apparently, her additional attention was not enough to keep the little lad safe.

Thomas had been a valuable accessory to his dramatic reading of the letter addressed to Colonel Cooke in which the Judge complained about him and the Rangers, as evidently the elder Woodhull believed he might harm the child- which amused him somewhat and enraged him even more.

He had killed men, yes, but not children- what an absurd notion. The babe had done nothing wrong, had not hurt him and in his innocent sweetness was rather endearing, actually.

Unwilling to make the babe once again an accessory of a stage-play he had no part in and somewhat uneasy at the thought the little one should actually _like_ him, he rose, put on his slippers and picked Thomas, who had gone inspecting the tub with the cooling bathwater in it, up.

Carrying him at the hip, he knocked at Mrs Woodhull’s door, but received no answer. With Miss Aberdeen nowhere in sight either, he made his way downstairs, somewhat unsure what to do and how to explain.

In the parlour, he found Mrs Woodhull and the Judge playing a game of chess; a man of Strategy, he could tell immediately the Judge was winning, whereas Mrs Woodhull’s thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. No doubt, she engaged in this pastime to appease and endear herself to her father-in-law.

“Ahem”, he announced himself, acutely aware of the weight of the little person on his arm, “I found Master Thomas all by himself, wandering the house. I thought it prudent to return him to the watchful eyes of his elders, lest some accident happens.”

The Judge, his eyes wide, rose from his chair. If the old man thought he appeared threatening, he was mistaken.

“Take your hands off my grandson”, he growled, thinking himself very brave.

“There is no reason to be uncouth”, Simcoe retorted, irritated that the man should behave so rudely when all he had done was return the child to him with the intention of keeping the little one from harm.

For some reason, and not entirely out of spite, he wanted to hold on to Thomas- quite likely, the latter felt safer at present with him than the venom-spitting aged viper he had the misfortune of calling his grandfather.

“I am sure the Captain only meant well”, Mrs Woodhull bravely inserted herself, standing between the two of them, and opened her arms to receive her son. Without hesitation, he passed him to his mother. Reluctantly, Thomas let go of his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck, burying his face in her hair.

-Obviously, the little one had the same opinion of the Judge as he had.

Never letting the Judge out of sight, he could see how red the latter’s face had turned with anger. To Simcoe, it was abundantly clear what irked the old man; he had meant to make an example of him, to heroically wrench his grandson from his arms and give him a quite impressive talking-to, not so much for the sake of the child, but self-gratification.

He was angered by Mrs Woodhull’s interception, and how quickly the unnecessary conflict had been laid by; that the wife of his wayward son, whom he had turned out, could with simple kindness make biddable the so utterly terrible Captain, had stolen from him the triumph of resolving this-

“You stay out of this, Mary!”, the old man exclaimed, his face distorted with anger. Flinching, Mrs Woodhull, clutching her infant close to her breast, retreated a few steps, yet her first instinct to obey and do as the Judge commanded was trumped by an intrepid nature, that caused her to advance again and growl with the fierceness of a lioness protecting her cub, “Thomas is _my_ son, Richard.”

“And he is my grandson! And this is my house, which is why you will do as I say, for as long as I choose to suffer your presence!”

Mrs Woodhull, so recently separated from her babe, trembled as she fought back tears.

“You have no power over me or my son”, the lady pressed though gritted teeth, a last stand against the verbal onslaught of her father in law.

“I have every power to do as I see fit in my own house”, the Judge barked, spittle flying. Had he addressed him so, Simcoe knew he would have riposted by reminding the old man of the even older proverb that those dogs who bark usually do not bite.

What might to him have become a mildly amusing pastime of duelling his wits with so easily subdued an opponent as the elder Woodhull, was utterly infuriating, for seeing a man berate a lady so, could in any true gentleman not stir any other emotions than displeasure and disgust.

Obviously, he threatened to withhold the child from her again, by casting her out- the latter which he was free to do, yet by the law he had no right to her child. Such a prerogative would lie with the father, but the Weasel, under constant surveillance by Ranger sentries, was too busy not to entangle himself in the web of lies and falsehoods he had spun in his root cellar, like an incredibly imbecilic arachnid.

“That is quite enough, Judge.”

As if he had almost forgotten his presence, Woodhull glared at him, unhappy to still find him in this room, in his house.

“This doesn’t concern you, Captain. I suggest you retire, and leave me and my daughter-in-law be. This is a matter between myself and-“ unwilling to suffer the sound of the Judge talking for longer, he cut him off:

“Apologise to Mrs Woodhull.”

Dumbly, the old man looked at him, anger in his eyes, and keeping his mouth demonstratively pressed together like a child unwilling to swallow a spoonful of a bitter medicine. To make quite plain to the Judge, whom he supposed to be of rather inferior intellectual qualities much like his son, what he had said and make him understand, he repeated himself as calmly and slowly as he could:

“I said ‘apologise to Mrs Woodhull’.”

The fuming old man did no such thing, as alas had to be expected. Instead, he yelled something about this matter not being decided yet, and that he would not face such disrespect under his own roof, a pretty little speech that was much attenuated by his retreat, closing the door so forcefully the bang of it falling shut made him subconsciously reach for his bandaged head.

Mrs Woodhull, meanwhile, had taken her son and exited the room shortly after the Judge, leaving him to himself with the table and abandoned chess-pieces, quite confused as to what had merited this abrupt end to what could have been an agreeably enough afternoon for all parties involved.

Sighing, and quite uncertain if it would be expected of him, too, to make a retreat and sulk, brood or in any other shape or form enter self-imposed solitary confinement with the goal of contemplating the perceived wrongs done by others, he seated himself in the Judge’s chair and surveyed the board. ‘Twas but a paltry victory since his opponent was absent from the field, but by playing the Judge’s black pieces as poorly as he played Mrs Woodhull’s white ones with cunning and strategy, managed to put the black king into checkmate. He should have been mildly amused at least, knowing the Judge would find the chessboard and know who had ended the game, but instead found a stale aftertaste in his mouth.

It was foolish to cry, but Mary could not help herself. A child might be permitted to shed tears in the face of something intimidating, but a grown woman- she ought to compose herself, if not for her sake, then at least for the sake of her son. Thomas was as much discomposed by the events as she, confused as to why there had been a dispute, and intimidated by his grandfather’s loud voice and her tears. Swallowing a sob, she cradled him against her chest, almost awaiting Richard to burst him and turn her out immediately, wrenching her son from her arms.

Perhaps it might not come to this, Richard, when in anger reacted oftentimes more severely at first than he did after having thought on matters more rationally, but he was also more stubborn than a donkey and could be unnaturally cold.

Perhaps her tears were not so much an expression of sadness or fear than the helplessness she felt. She had in recent times been given ample proof she could do nothing about her situation, could not alter her fate that hung from precariously thin strings; Richard’s benevolence, Abe’s clandestine dealings, even, as the day had proved Simcoe’s moods.

Encaged was the right word for it, she felt encaged by the politics of others, of circumstances neither of her doing nor of her volition; she had become a murderer and an accessory to the same, and had with the intend to kill injured a man- and what for?

Her life had not changed for the better on account of those bloody deeds that had seemed so necessary, nay; she had been turned out of Whitehall, where some of her pretty dresses from the days before the War, or rather, Abe’s involvement in it and the failing harvests of recent years still lay all packed-up. She had hoped that by aiding him, by protecting their family for which she had ceaselessly done what she could, he would come to regard her with a softer gaze.

Mary was not so wholly departed from reality to think he could love her as he did Anna Strong, but perhaps he could find some measure of the same tender affection in his heart for her, though that was quite possibly too much to ask, when she could not offer him the same.

Uncomplaining, she endured and did her utmost to appease and please all factions, the safety and peace of her family always first and foremost on her mind. She had always smiled bravely through the rumours and jests Abe’s infidelity had generated, attempted to endear herself to Richard and to separate herself from her husband’s reputation in the eyes of the public by being the paragon of all virtues associated with a wife and mother.

Simultaneously, those things had given her a purpose in life, a challenge she had sought to excel in. Now, she had come to doubt all that.

A knock at the door, unexpectedly low and temperate, caused her to look up from the blond shock of hair in her arm.

“Who is it?”, she asked, forcing her voice not to tremble too badly- she would never give Richard the satisfaction of seeing her so. No reply came.

Instead, the door opened with the brisk, yet quiet movement of a predator, and closed equally quietly, too. Looking up from the pocket-handkerchief in her hand with which she had attempted to dab the last evidence of her tears away and half-expecting Richard had come to either berate her some more or offer a half-hearted apology that would be meaningless to her, Simcoe’s tall, shadowy figure approached.

“Mrs Woodhull, I-“ he thought for a moment, acutely aware as was she of the fact a man and a woman ought never to be caught alone in her bedroom with the door closed.

Thomas, still confused and afeard from the shouting-match he should never have witnessed, stopped in his concerned whimpers, and looked with eyes as wide as his mother’s at the visitor, his grief temporarily forgotten.

“I wanted to-“ he swallowed whatever words laid at the tip of his tongue, sensing they would have no effect on her.

Looking utterly out of place, he stood before her more like a curiously tall, confused child than the cruel Captain known to the length and breadth of Long Island. Helplessness governed the usually so stern and haughty features, mellowed the steely gaze and softened the thin, twitching line of his mouth with unspoken words of consolation he knew would have no effect on her.

He had to leave. He could not be here, Mary came to think amid her tears. The incriminating evidence of her nightly excursion was too close by, behind the picture, under the bed- much affrighted, she sat there almost petrified, praying that, his compassionate motive aside, the tame creature presently standing before her might not transmute to a tiger upon sniffing out some irregularity in the room. Pressing Thomas close to her chest, she hoped he would leave, leave her alone, leave the country and take Richard with him, he would be no loss to her, either.

But he did not leave, and he did not take Richard with him.

She felt his palm warmly against the back of her hand, pressing it gently. The whole thing lasted a second, two at most, but left so profound an imprint on her memory, it could have been hours long.

It was the pathetic gesture of one helpless in the face of matters far exceeding the boundaries of his control, and an honest offer of solace.

“I don’t want your pity, Captain.”

Even now, utterly shattered in all she had once believed and the principles she had observed, a part of the spirit that had given her a courage greater than was generally ascribed to Woman. To be pitied meant to be beyond rescue, to be utterly subjugated- which she, gaining new spirit in this moment, refused to be taken for.

“And I do not offer you any”, he replied, and reduced his voice to a soft whisper so as to not alert the Judge or Aberdeen to his presence in her room.

Judging by his sudden appearance in this very same chamber on the night she had shot him, bearing greater resemblance to a wounded beast than to a man, she was prepared to be hissed, snarled or barked at- and it hardly mattered anymore, seeing as Richard had already done the same.

But the Captain’s gaze was open, and his features calm. He was not one to hide his motives well; his face tended to speak for him before his horrendously high-pitched voice could. Studying his gaze, she found she could not read it as she used to- there was no sneering arrogance or wild, impassioned anger in it, not even the thinly-veiled promise of dread.

He was first to break away, blinking, and without a word, left as silently as he had come.

That night, Mary did not go downstairs- she wanted to avoid Richard at any cost for as long as she could and had Aberdeen fetch her and Thomas some bread and cold meat from the day before.

Slowly but steadily, her thoughts returned to their habitual order. She would have to make amends with Richard, pretend to subservient penitence if only for the purpose of keeping him happy and thus keeping Thomas by her side.

She resented the thought of it already, but saw no alternative. Entrapped as she was, her ways and means were limited; but she could work within them, do her utmost and continue protecting her child and herself from the forces of the war, loyal and rebel tearing at her in opposing directions. Perhaps she should have shot Richard that day, she thought darkly when she remembered the awkward encounter with Simcoe, who, if it had not been pity as he claimed, had at least attempted to show remorsefulness or compassion within his obviously rather limited capability of expressing Feeling and Emotion.

It was not worth much, and had he kept his mouth shut when returning Thomas to them, or at least corrected his speech somewhat, the situation might never have escalated, yet to be shown the kindness of a well-meant thought, a gesture intended for a friendly interpretation, had touched her when for the most part, she considered herself all alone in her plight to maintain whatever semblance of safety she could, protect Abe and her son from the latter’s foolhardy operations and Richard’s misguided ire.

She had only realised it when he had gone, and the immediate threat of him discovering her substantial secret abated.

[i] I stole this remark from a certain lady whose married name was Mrs Simcoe. While the remark has been misread by biographers as her subscribing to a traditional picture of womanhood and role of women in society as I have Mary(‘s younger self) believe in, the wider context of the quote and the addressee, her best friend, who was as non-traditional as was possible in the 1790s living on her own unmarried, making her own money, matter. It is clearly the kind of caustic remark that can be frequently found in Elizabeth’s writings she appears to have used whenever she disapproved of something. Having been raised with the exception of a surprisingly open-minded uncle exclusively by well-educated women, she was used to being able to speak her mind and express her opinions- yet also knew that society as a whole was not as open-minded as her family.

[ii] Hanging was considered a very dishonourable way to be executed mostly associated with criminals. A firing-squad or decapitation were deemed more ‘noble’, so to speak, though I am no expert on capital punishment and don’t know how common decapitations by sword or axe still were in the 18th century.

[iii] The story of Judith and Holofernes is a story from the Old Testament frequently interpreted in arts and culture, especially the baroque period. The town of Bethulia in Israel is threatened by the troops of a foreign general called Holofernes laying siege to it by cutting off its water supply. As the townspeople debate what might be done, a young, rich widow comes forward and offers to try and save the town. With her intellect and charm, she tricks Holofernes into trusting her, who immediately throws a big feast with Judith as his guest. On the last night, the already very drunk Holofernes thinks he might finally get Judith to sleep with him and invites her to his tent. Judith obliges, but has only waited for the moment when Holofernes passes out completely drunk, then decapitates him with his own sword and takes the head to Bethulia as a trophy, where she is celebrated as a heroine. Holofernes’ troops flee in horror and the town is saved.

[iv] Judges 5:24-26. Fearless women killing military commanders seems to be a common theme in the Old Testament.

[v] The first volume of _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ also known as _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ by Edward Gibbon was published in 1776.

[vi] A play on the famous words supposedly uttered by Cato in the Roman senate: _ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam_ , translating to “furthermore, I consider that Carthage [here, Setauket] must be destroyed”. Although there are no contemporary sources to back the claim up, Cato is said to have closed all his speeches regardless of the topic with this little sentence, at long last persuading his fellow senators in 150 BC, which lead to the Third Punic War (149-146 BC).

[vii] You bet Simcoe remembers *all* the Latin words that can mean killing someone. I only remembered four from the four or five years I took Latin at school, so I’d like to thank the online-dictionary of my choice for providing the rest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head when Abe is caught breaking into Setauket's church...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the rating did go up. Enjoy. ;)

He really _did_ hate Woodhull. Everyone in Setauket knew of his rebellious disposition and leanings far beyond what could be excused as Whiggish, and his latest attempts to stir up trouble came as no surprise to him. He, and his eyes and ears, where everywhere. What he did not see and could not hear ( _even less so now_ , he added wryly to that thought and scratched the slowly healing remains of his ear that had begun to itch under the bandage), his men heard and saw for him, as well as occasionally those who by means of stern intimidation could be persuaded to give up a morsel of intelligence.

Woodhull desired to take up arms against him- quite amusing, actually, how he thought that he, leading a band of backwater-ne’er-do-wells might destroy him, or the Rangers. Wakefield was a weak man, too afraid and easily intimidated to be a good soldier, and it had not required much effort to press some simple words of confession from him, that Abraham Woodhull had attempted to win Wakefield’s aid for his laughable little plot. First and foremost, Wakefield protected his men, and himself; one had to give him that much credit. Woodhull was to him perhaps, tho’ doubtlessly sympathetic in his cause, as much a miscreant to the good, cautious Captain as he was to him.

Too long had he put up with him, this vile little ferret-faced cabbage-farmer. He would lie in wait for him, catch him red-handed and then destroy him, and finally obtain some well-deserved peace.

Although his hands itched to defile him, he knew the virtue of Patience stalking one’s prey, and therefore cautioned himself not to act hastily, and indeed to wait for Woodhull to make all the wrong choices, and allow him to incriminate his worthless self as badly as possible.

Meanwhile, he would be at Whitehall, comfortably installed in the latter’s father’s house and enjoy inconveniencing the Magistrate with his mere presence.

There was another thing he much enjoyed in a very different way, one he would never publicly admit to due to the implications it may have; there were the evenings with Mary Woodhull, who would sit with him, and prove an agreeable partner for conversation.

Her son Thomas could by no means be called a conversationalist; he was too young still, and quite shy with most people, but he joined them at times, too, sleepily curled up in his mother’s lap or sitting by their side on the carpet, playing.

Those quiet nights pleased him more than he could admit to himself; it had quite shocked him, the realisation he had actually missed the domesticity of an orderly household he had last observed two, three years ago in the home of his godfather. Since then, he had mostly lived either by himself in the cheap and not exactly welcoming accommodations provided for a soldier, even an officer, and later Whitehall, which could hardly be called a home at all, and to him resembled more the lair of a vicious old reptile.

For some of these golden, pristine moments when he conversed with Mrs Woodhull over some trifle while viewing little Thomas at play, his round cheeks glowing in the light of the fire, there was some measure of happiness in the world that allowed him to forget the task set to him and those vexatious individuals he wished at long last to be rid of.

Sitting with her, viewing her treat him with less antipathetic reserve and ever more cautious friendliness as their acquaintance progressed, the pressing question what he would do with Mary Woodhull, how he would explain the imminent imprisonment of her husband to the lady, had forced itself to the front of his mind. She did not love that worm, so much he knew, yet she made it a point to be a model wife unto him, and a model daughter unto her father-in-law, a reputation that must inevitably be tarnished by the iniquity of a treasonous husband.

So virtuous and kind a lady as she ought not to become accessory to so unspeakably detestable a man and his crime, yet he could not see how to avoid that, or how to address this matter directly.

She was undeserving of such scandal and pain. Over the last week or two, she would sit with him almost every evening, keeping him company for a while. He saw in that a distinct kindness of a rare quality and valued it very much, hoping she found some companionship of a similar kind in his presence as well; Old Woodhull was not a pleasant man to live under the same roof with and he never ceased to hold her responsible for the disappointment his son unceasingly caused him. There was only so much he could do, or say of course, but since his open interception, he at least watched his tongue occasionally, which he noticed was having an effect on Mrs Woodhull, who now found herself less frequently the victim of his tirades or general discontent.

He would need to be quite delicate in his actions. Mrs Woodhull, and little Thomas, whose shy smiles in his direction he could not explain or comprehend, ought not suffer. The intelligence of Woodhull’s treasonous plot was known to him for a while; a few days at least, and on every single one, sitting in the evening by the fire with Mary Woodhull, he had wondered if he ought not warn her, tell her, but was afraid she would take it very badly and be much affected with despair or grief.

His conscience suffered for it, but he knew from personal experience that a painful operation was best conducted quickly, and that affecting her with sadness and despair for days would not do her any good, and neither would it do him; in her steadfast allegiance to the vow she had given, it would not be out of the question that she might warn the Weasel if she knew, thus aiding him to escape.

Would she do so, he would respect her choice and principles on which that decision had been based, but be very vexed to have lost his chance to lay his hands on her husband once and for all.

-But, as it turned out, it was the trapped Weasel who would lay hands on him first when he caught the traitor red-handed attempting to steal muskets from the church, doubtlessly to arm his ragtag band of rebels (townspeople stupid enough to follow the Weasel, no doubt). Having lain in wait for him and with Wakefield as his witness and albeit unwilling informant, there was no way Abraham Woodhull would escape this time.

Like any entrapped animal, Woodhull was fighting for an escape (futile, for the Rangers surrounded the church) and struck him on the lip in the process, causing it to split and bleed. Tasting his own blood on his tongue, his vision and thoughts narrowed to one single objective, namely to have the Weasel hanged.

“Get a rope.”

Dragging him by the scruff of the neck, he desired to have the Weasel hanging from the next best tree, which the latter naturally objected to, and attempted to flee the consequences of his actions, which of course proved futile as the Rangers made certain an escape was impossible.

His own memory of events was quite fogged, clouded by the fall occasioned by Woodhull’s blow to his face that had caused him to fall backwards, his rage and the inconceivable insolence the Weasel had shown by striking him, wherefore he could not remember anything but the sudden appearance of the elder Woodhull and the latter’s daughter-in-law. She was quite terrified and attempted to intercede on behalf of her husband with the Judge pleading for his son’s life as well, proposing his son should be tried instead of hanged directly.

Why exactly, he could not tell; shouldn’t the old man thank him? From what he had learned of this unhappy family, he would have guessed the elder Woodhull to be quite happy about being rid of his only remaining son forever, at least then he could find some sympathy for himself in the tragedy of his premature demise, and bask in the sun of commiserating well-wishers showering him with attention in his grief for having been so grossly betrayed by his son one last time.

He knew the law, and knew that the trial was his to win, not Woodhull’s. It was a game the father was willing to play to save the son’s life, one in which he thought he might succeed by challenging the odds, but such would prove futile- the law was quite clear on what must necessarily befall the miscreant who strikes an officer and attempts to commit theft and treason to boot.

They should have their trial, if they so wished. Perhaps, it was even better this way; had he hanged Woodhull now, he would have given him a quick and easy death, now he would sit imprisoned, anguished, anxiously awaiting his fate, his spirit cheered by false hope- it would only make his ultimate triumph much more enjoyable to see his old adversary broken, his hope lost, dangling from the gallows (built to exact army specifications, of course).

Much as this image filled him with a grim sort of cheer, the same turned stale in his mouth when he, waiting in his habitual seat by the fire, found that his usual companion would not join him. At first piqued and not understanding why she would break their habit unannounced, he rose and went upstairs to knock on her door in order to enquire after her well-being. Perhaps she was merely suffering from that womanly affliction the Sex[i] tend to be quite vague about, or a violent head-ache- in which case (his ire and confusion mellowed somewhat), he would of course assist her in any way possible to him -to a man- as far as propriety and the respectful male disinterest in certain matters allowed.

Knocking, at first he received no reply; had she gone out with the Judge, whom he had seen leaving the house an half-hour or so earlier? No doubt, he had gone to see his son to waste no time on preparing a strategy- and a d—d good one they would need. He did not understand why Mrs Woodhull would be required, wherefore he was quite certain she was still in the house.

After the third, more insistent, knock, the door was opened to him and a face with somewhat swollen eyes and a reddened nose poked out of the door. She had evidently torn her cap off, which had caused her coiffure to slowly disengage and fall in unintentional strands to her shoulders, and looked not one bit as pleased with his coming as he had hoped.

“Mrs Woodhull”, he tried gently and narrowly avoided the heavy door being shut in his face without a word had it not been for his quick reflex to shove his boot between the heavy wood and the frame.

“Mrs Woodhull”, he repeated himself, this time somewhat angered, “I wonder-“

Realising she had no way of being rid of him quickly, she was ready to satisfy his curiosity: “Leave me be. I wish no further association with you.”

So she was quite enraged about that ugly matter earlier in the day. It had never been his wish to affect her, yet it had not been circumventable; the Weasel was her husband after all, though he would never have thought she cared so much about him.

“Please, Mrs Woodhull”, he attempted once again with a patience that did not come naturally to him and was already much strained, “allow me to speak with you in private.”

With his foot still firmly in place, she had no choice but to either have him stand there all day and night, or let him in in hopes he might say what was on his mind and leave soon: following the latter logic, she huffed angrily and relented, closing the door behind him.

“How dare you?”, was all she managed to say, lost for words. She never loved Abe- not in the way she was sure would have loved his brother Thomas, but he was the father of her son, and at least, they had always shared the common misfortune of an unhappy marriage. He was no bad man- foolish, childish, maybe, an adulterer, his mind not suited to the harshness of a world at war in which he dabbled at participating- but not a bad man who deserved to be hanged by the neck.

She had many complaints about her husband, but nobody deserved to hang for attempting to stand up to a tyrant. It had been ill-prepared, his plans as far as she could tell rash and foreseeable; but at least, contrary to the other townspeople who silently suffered Simcoe’s bullying and cruelty, he had taken matters into his hands.

Much like she had lately come to think she had failed at being a Judith or Yael, Abe had failed to be a David. And now, she found herself standing in front of an angry Goliath.

How had she ever been able to ignore those aspects of the man before her she found despicable, revolting, and altogether horrid? Mary scolded herself for her weakness of letting it go on, for having sat with Simcoe every night, who had mellowed her view of him with acts of compassion; she had let herself be impressed by those basest acts of human decency she had been surprised he was capable of; he had stood up to Richard in her name and asked her every night how she was doing- just because such basic kindness had been lost in the Woodhull-household, it did not mean that any person merited praise for acting in those ways; it spoke of how poisoned and rotten a place Whitehall was, and of how desperate she was for even the smallest shred of humanity, warmth, and kindness.

Simcoe had always been, and remained a vile infernal fiend in a human hide, whatever he might try to tell her now.

Enraged, she took two paces towards him.

“How dare you?” Simcoe stood motionlessly with his arms behind his back, reminding her of a servant in a grand house feigning dull indifference until called upon and given orders.

A reply of any kind, a simple shrug would have been enough, but he said nothing, and moved not an inch. Before she could make sense of her own actions, she had flown at him in her rage and hit his chest with her closed fist.

It must have hurt; she was by no means infirm or weak, but he said nothing still, which only stoked the fire of blind fury within her.

She should have shot him, him who did not merit saving, should have shot them all who were the authors of her misery for years, Richard, Simcoe, maybe even Abe, too- as her fist was about to hit him a second, perhaps already third time, her wrist was caught in his hand.

“That is quite enough, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Woodhull?”

“I cannot see how it ever could be when you want to hang my husband”, she retorted, ready to fight and kick him, would he not release her at once, which almost to her disappointment, he did.

“Your husband is a traitor”, he said in a soft voice a benevolent teacher might use to repeat his instructions to a particularly dull child, “it is he who is responsible for his deeds, not I or you. I merely follow the law.”

“ _The law?_ ”, Mary scoffed. “You would have hung him on that tree immediately, had not Richard interceded!”

“I was… in a foul mood on account of his violence against me, I concede to that, but can only direct you to his imminent trial, in which you may give testimony to your husband’s favourable qualities, if you are so inclined.”

Almost like a child after a brawl wishing to incriminate the other party in front of a parent by pretending to having been the helpless victim, he pointed to his lip where a small line of dried blood indicated its recent injury. Mary, no stranger to scraped knees, bruises and other such trifles hardly even meriting the appellation ‘injury’ could not have cared less.

“A trial whose outcome you already know, and have secured!”, she exclaimed, and pushed him- another expression of utter helplessness, as she knew only too well, but it was still better to do that than nothing at all, to express her anger somehow, to find a moment of cheap gratification in him stumbling, evidently taken by surprise she should attempt to assault him again, into the doorframe.

The silhouette of her cousin, upon Simcoe’s body crashing against it, thudded to the floor.

Alerted by the noise, he turned on his heel and viewed the evidence she had attempted to hide from him.

Mary’s heart pounded wildly, as is only possible in a moment of fear and panic so strong, death cannot be ruled out. Her eyes darted across the room in search of a suitable weapon, and found none. Her dagger was too far away, and she would have to rummage to get it, and there was no other sharp or blunt instrument she could think of that might have been useful in incapacitating (or killing) an opponent twice her size and strength.

For a moment, he stood and stared at the rusty brown handprint, evidently making sense of the sight before him and digesting its meaning, before he turned to her, hissing: “ _You-_ “

Before she could know how to proceed, decide whether to vehemently deny everything or throw herself at his feet in false penitence, he had taken her by the forearms, and although taking care not to hurt, shoved her roughly against the wall. Holding her in place with his left arm and effectively cutting off any attempts to flee by retreating with his body close behind her, he took hold of her right hand and placed it over the damning imprint.

“It never was Rogers”, he whispered agitatedly into her ear, surprised by his own realisation. “Rogers never even was here. It was you all along.” The last sentence was spoken much too calmly, giving Mary cause for unease- what would he do with her?

If he were to kill her now, he would be justified in doing so, even if she naturally resented and dreaded the thought. She had tried no less with him, and had to expect to receive repayment in kind.

Preparing herself to take whatever fate he had designed for her with fortitude and attempting to not think of her son, who might be entirely without parents very soon, she gritted her teeth, and forced her face to assume a brave expression. She might have shot a man from behind, but she was no coward.

A noise escaped from his lips, half an angry growl, half a chuckle, too high-pitched to sound human. _He has gone mad_ , Mary thought, which only increased the fear in her heart she was intent not to show. Petrified, she awaited his judgement over her, long hours before he would judge over Abe.

But whatever she had dreaded did not occur- he released her, to which she gave an audible sigh of relief that could not be held back and took to pacing up and down the room, his banyan flying behind him as he crossed it in brisk steps back and forth, back and forth.

She could run now, or get her dagger and kill him- she could claim afterwards he had tried things with her and she, the ever-dutiful, honest and above all, virtuous wife, had only defended herself and her honour from his unwanted, threatening advances.

But she did not.

Understanding that leaving the room was no option worth pursuing as it would alert more people to a secret she was intent on keeping and not knowing what Simcoe might do were he to think she was fleeing him, she merely stood by the fireplace, eyeing her one-time-victim.

“Sit”, the latter commanded her at last and pointed to the bed. Mary obeyed, sensing the command came with no untoward insinuation and placed herself at the very edge, ready to jump up at any moment.

“You have shot me, and must have killed Fitch”, Simcoe said slowly, “I wonder what might have been your motivation.”

He sounded almost conversational, as if they were two men of the same trade exchanging opinions on how to brew the best ale, or the best days for harvesting cauliflower, had it not been for the added pitch to his already unusual voice that would not suit his frame (or any man, woman or child for that matter).

He was thinking, she could tell. His mind was in the same state of agitation as hers, and it remained to be seen on which instinct, anger or fear, he would come to act.

“I did what I deemed necessary to protect my family”, Mary braved herself to say, and sought Simcoe’s gaze.

“Your family?”, he echoed, “Have I not brought you here, to be with your son, whom as I understand it, you were separated from on account of your father-in-law’s ire? I should think you and Thomas are quite safe at Whitehall.”

“A boy needs his father”, she replied and clarified: “Your desire to have my husband’s head is universally known, and I sought to prevent-“

“By attempting to kill me and dispatching of the innocent Fitch to deflect any suspicion from you, a lady, upon a more threatening individual, with the help of an unknown party to fire a shot in the woods in order to add greater effect to your ploy, I suspect? I must say, Mrs Woodhull, you have me quite surprised.”

Unable to tell whether he was being genuine in his sentiment or ironic as the treacherous calmness of his voice would not reveal any definite sentiment, Mary pressed on: “Fitch was- he was- I did not intent on doing anyone any harm-“

“Except for me.”

“He had seen me, and attempted to usher me inside to save me from Robert Rogers. I had no choice.”

“In the same way you had no choice but to kill me?”

“Thomas needs his father”, she repeated herself, not knowing what else to say. She could hardly find the words to speak of what she had done, even less so in the presence of the man she had wished dead.

To her surprise, Simcoe said nothing, yet she could see how his jaw clenched, and he averted her eyes.

“Indeed. Yet you had not thought of petitioning to me instead of resorting to such drastic measures?”

“If I would have, you would not have listened.”

He did not reply, which Mary read as the response of a prideful man proven wrong, unable to admit to it.

“I am quite hurt, Mrs Woodhull; to think I have put my trust in you when it was you who wished me dead.”

Raising an eyebrow, he turned once more on his heel before he seated himself in the chair by the window.

Mary could not wait any longer and, against her own will and pride asked: “What shall you do with me?”

A long pause followed. Simcoe did not look at her, fixing some point in the distant darkness outside.

“What would you have me do?”, he at long last replied, before, sensing she would not give an answer to that question as that would only incriminate her further and seal her fate, he added: “I don’t know.”

Mary did not know either what should be done now. To beg for mercy would be impudent; she had harmed him grievously with the intent of killing him, and had admitted to that. Were she a man, he would have done with her as he had done with Robeson and so many others, that she was certain of.

“I did what I deemed necessary to protect my child, and his father. I have no personal interest in this war save the protection of my family. That is all I have, and naturally wish to safeguard.”

Simcoe turned to look at her. She had told him everything during their evenings by the fire, of how she had not been destined for the fate now allotted to her, how she had dreamt as wishfully of Abe’s deceased brother, as Abe thought of Anna Strong; he knew she was speaking the truth.

“Your husband must stand trial for his crimes now”, Simcoe, busying his restless fingers with a loose thread on his left sleeve, replied. “It is honourable of you to wish to protect him, but you cannot safeguard him from his own inclinations, and his own foolishness.”

“Then you must ensure his trial shall be held fairly”, Mary replied, hoping Simcoe’s surprisingly mellow reaction to having been shot with deadly intent might also mean he had the capacity to show mercy to more than one person that night.

“You wish me to let him go without answering for his crime? He struck a royal officer and attempted to incite a rebellion by availing himself of the garrison’s muskets and ammunition. Your husband, Mrs Woodhull as per the law must hang, I am afraid.”

“If you hang him, he will hang for less than what I did. Would that be the justice you speak of?”

“Justice may only be delivered by the just”, Simcoe replied, his voice a little higher than before. “I claim no such moral high ground. I am merely appointed to keep, or re-install, order among these parts. Besides, I do not think you are in any position to make demands of me, Mrs Woodhull.”

“I am well aware that my fate rests on the shoulders of your mercy”, she said cautiously, “But Abe-“

“Mr Woodhull is a traitor”, he informed her of the obvious, “to his country, to his king, and to his wife. He does not merit the mercy of either of these parties.”

“Abraham is not- he is not-“ there were so many things Mary could have inserted that her husband was _not_ ; but he was Thomas’ father. “And yet he is the father of my son, who would forever be besmirched with the mark of treason. Thomas is innocent of any wrongdoing, and of his parentage. What would I say to him, how his father died, and why he is shunned by all? How to explain he has no father, when he sees other boys with theirs? If you think my intentions were rooted in personal spite or any such low sentiment, you are mistaken.”

“A lioness protecting her cub”, Simcoe closed, “much as I deem your sentiment honourable, I must inform you of the misguidedness of your actions.”

“Is it not what you do, and are paid for by the King?”, Mary retorted, “To dispatch of enemies who threaten what you hold dear, or consider worth safeguarding?”

He looked at her, intrigued as a botanist sketching a newly-discovered plant.

“You act with no authority awarded to you by an entity or person eligible to give that permission, be it General Washington or the King”, Simcoe explained, “that is what makes me a soldier, and you a murderess.”

“And what do those deeds make you, which you committed against John Robeson, Maarten de Jong, Elias Appleby and so many others? Have you a royal license for all that, too?”

A visibly incensed Simcoe rose, and stepped towards her. Oddly, Mary felt no fear. “Might I remind you that your actions tricked me into believing someone in the town must be collaborating with Robert Rogers?”, he hissed. “Do not pretend with me. You were the causer of these actions, I merely the executor of what seemed right.”

“What _seems_ right, _is not_ right.” Looking him in the eyes without averting the steely ire of his gaze, Mary stood before him, unmoving.

“I suggest you cease speaking so insolently”, Simcoe advised her, “or else you may find yourself sharing your husband’s fate.”

“You truly are then, what they hold you for in the town: _a monster_.” Mary’s voice trembled with agitation, but the words flowed freely from her mouth, having waited so long to be spoken- and be heard. “You would make an orphan of a child? A child even, who for no discernible reason, shows affection to you? Monster.”

Turning from him in disgust, she had half a mind to find the dagger and kill him now, but was prevented by a firm grip around her upper arm holding her back and spinning her around.

Simcoe’s jaw was clenched, and his eyes revealed hints of tears he wished to hide from her when he spoke: “I am not a monster. I wish Thomas no harm-“

A thin, salt tear ran down his cheek, either unremarked upon by him, or uncared for; she would have almost mellowed to the sight before her, had not the very peculiar circumstances of their exchanged prevented her from it.

“No harm shall come to your son”, he whispered, “I will make certain of that.”

“But you are willing to dispatch of his mother and father.”

“I spoke in rage, rage well-deserved, I suppose. It seemed right to do so. Tell me, did it not _seem_ right to kill me that night?”

“It did.”

And with the hair-splitting sharpness of a barrister interrogating a witness, he asked: “And _was_ it right?”

Mary did not answer.

Afterwards, she was unable to tell how, what had happened then- they had stood quite close to another, so much was for certain, and from one moment to the other, she had felt his lips on hers, or hers on his (he would come to claim the latter version of events were true whereas she swore upon the veracity of the former), colliding with possessive, destructive fervour.

Holding on to her with one arm, he rid himself of his banyan and guided her to the bed, on which he made her lie, hovering over her, leaning on his elbows.

“It _seems_ right”, he mocked her, to which Mary retaliated by drawing him in for another kiss, a manoeuvre which she used to bite his injured lip in retaliation, breaking the thin eschar and drawing blood.

“You are a spirited little murderess”, he replied, more excited than angered by her ruthless deed, and ground his swollen midsection against her, leaving no doubt of his intentions for her.

“It _was_ necessary”, she breathed, quite unable to think straight as he methodically removed the pins that had held the front of her gown together.

She could still say no, could push him away, could slap him, kick him where it hurt most (and where he was giving her the fairest aim at present)- but her body persuaded her mind to let it go on, to indulge in the violent passion of his kisses down her neck, the animalistic joy of hearing him moan as she tore at what hair was not covered by the bandage encircling his head; their clothes fell faster than Ticonderoga had, and it was only when she was fully unclothed that she became acutely aware of the implications of what they were doing, and the act itself- suddenly, his heated gaze burned on her skin and she felt the need to cover herself.

Having felt her go motionless beneath him, he stilled in his movements and rolled himself off her. “We need not continue”, he offered awkwardly and made it a point to stare at the wall, so as to give her time to at least put on her chemise, or draw the quilt over her body.

“It is not that-“, Mary, blushing, replied, “it is-“

She could hardly pretend to be a blushing virgin; she was not, and had the husband and child to prove it. But she had only ever been with Abe, and it had been so utterly different with him- he was very much different from Simcoe in certain critical respects, too.

“I have never been with anybody but Abe”, she murmured, knowing the most prudent thing would be to stop, tell him to dress and leave lest they should be discovered, but Desire triumphed over Reason, prompting her to speak, and make him stay.

“I understand. You have made it quite plain in the past how stringently you wish to adhere to your vows. It was an error of judgement, this, and we need not speak of it again.”

“No, please, I only meant-“

Simcoe, who had half-risen from the bed, paused.

“I meant that I-“

“I have never lain with you, as you have never lain with me. We are equal in that.”

Having at last understood the meaning of her words, he had proven a great deal of surprising delicacy in approaching the subject, before both of them turned wordless again, and she gave herself freely to the Captain.

Much as the moments prior had been dictated by heady passion born of rage, they had fallen into a new rhythm; steady and deliberate, he moved over her to cover her body with his own and she opened her thighs to accommodate his not inconsiderable frame.

Prior to this, they could have done it and excused their doings as heedlessness, a foolish eruption of misguided passions that had manifested carnally; what happened now they did consciously, with clear intent: he knew he was bedding the woman who had wanted to kill him, she broke her vows and each and every one of her prior principles to gain pleasure in the arms of him whom she had not long ago wished dead. And yet, it appeared they both did not care, Mary soothed her very active conscience, unwilling to let it preside over and spoil these moments.

On her wedding night, Abe had come to her drunk; not drunk enough to fall into bed like a cut tree, leaving the duty of legally making his wife his by claiming her carnally for the morning, but not sober enough to make her like it either. To his credit, he had, in his mellowed state, been kind and friendly, but the alcohol had robbed him of any skill or credible reassurance for the nervous girl before him altogether. It had been quick and painful on her part, and she had spent the rest of the night curled up on the opposite side of the bed with a pocket-handkerchief between her thighs, wondering how women willingly endured _that_ over and over to the point of embarking on affairs, sharing their bed with men other than -occasionally- their husbands.

Over time, they had found ways in which they both could find a moment of enjoyment in it; she could hardly claim Thomas’ existence was the result of continuous connubial misery (the latter had its roots in topics far beyond the marriage bed) however, Mary could not recall a moment in which she had wanted it as much as then.

His kisses were long and intense, his movements methodical and effective, so much so he deemed it necessary to caution her about not making any noises lest they be discovered when his fingers languidly stroked the mound of her sex and in their exploration progressed ever further, until she felt first one, then two fingers within her-

“Oh”, she breathed, and immediately scolded herself for having made a noise, and not having said anything of substance- if such was possible, trembling with oncoming desire.

“Mary”, he growled into her ear and accentuated his speech with a frustratingly light caress of her right nipple, “you need not pretend with me. We are the same, you and I.”

He made her feel his hardness then, which, doubtlessly pleasing the vain peacock that he at times was, she stroked with more than a hint of surprise, for her only comparison was rather different in size. There was no reason to give him greater cause to become enamoured with his insufferable self-image as a perfect, and above all, _manly_ gentleman, wherefore she refrained from commenting. Such was unnecessary anyway, for she was fully aware that things larger than his not inconsiderable length had fitted within her body in the past (eight pounds of screeching, bald discontentment presently growing into a fine young boy for example).

Her touch appeared to make him almost pleasantly wordless and meek as he fell onto his back, totally unprotected (she could kill him now- he would not suspect a thing until it would be too late, and her cushion pressed firmly into his face), letting her decide and preside over the situation and the ways in which she would give him pleasure (only very slowly, torturously- just as he deserved): when he had almost reached the precipice of passion, he bade her stop, and, rising, took fair aim between her thighs. His hands were intertwined with hers on the bedclothes as he slowly rocked himself deeper and deeper inside her until his hips were flush against hers. She moaned discontentedly as he stopped his movements altogether before he, quite pleased with the sight of her attempting to move as best as she could in desperate attempts to cause heated friction between their bodies, desperate for the eventual release, renewed his efforts, first in much too gentle, slow rocking motions before beginning to thrust more forcefully.

“You like that”, he commented, smirking, pleased with himself and her reaction, continued to pleasure her relentlessly with all means at his disposal; his hands were everywhere, caressing, teasing, pleasuring her so profoundly in their expert manipulations of her willing body that when she would almost have cried out loud, he once more was forced to retreat with one hand and place it over her mouth as her body shuddered below and around him. He followed her mere moments after to that paradise of heavenly bliss and collapsing upon her chest as he did, repeated her name over and over, murmured it into the crook of her neck: “Mary. Mary. Mary-“

It was surprising to her how tame her adversary had become once his desire had been sated, and he lay idly by her side, content and exhausted. She turned to lie on her side, not knowing how to progress from thence, when he put an arm around her and drew her to his chest. Entrapped in his embrace which she had only moments prior welcomed and reciprocated, the fate of three lives remained unspoken, yet present, between them.

What had occurred moments prior had been a thunderstorm, lightning and thunder colliding, but now, the air once pregnant with the foreboding gloom of an imminent storm had calmed, and Mary’s thoughts, clouded first by hatred and disgust, then desire, had cleared again.

“I could leave, with Thomas”, Mary proposed in a low voice, “visit my relations. I would not be missed at Whitehall, and far away from-“

Simcoe shook his head softly. She could not see it, but the motions she felt him make with his face quite obviously buried in her hair were all too plain.

“That would not do”, he crushed her hopes, “you think it would not be remarked upon in Setauket that I let a lady under my protection travel all alone when Robert Rogers is hiding in these woods, armed and dangerous?”

A spark of hope ignited in Mary’s heart when his words reached her brain. “Rogers-“

“…must remain the inevitable cause and explanation.”

Upon instinct, Mary turned in his embrace to look him in the eyes. She would not negotiate for her life, Thomas’ and Abe’s in an improper fashion- if anything about this all was still to be called proper. A pair of blue eyes met hers without the prejudices of ire or disgust she was so accustomed to find in them.

“Who taught you how to shoot?”, he demanded to know, and Mary answered truthfully. From the expression on his face she could tell he was more surprised than he was willing to let on.

“I expect the student quickly outdid her teacher”, he commented not without respect, “though you must not have any more practice in this art. You shall remain here, with me.”

Remarking upon the expression of incredulity on her features, he added: “were you a man, I would have given you the choice between the rope and conscription in the Rangers. A good shot is invaluable. But as you are a woman, such a question cannot be posed to you.”

“Then _this_ ”, she gestured into the air above them, signifying their current situation and even more so what had passed between them, “is the price I pay for being a woman? My punishment?”

Angrily, she wanted to rise, uncaring if anybody would take notice if she threw him out by his remaining ear, naked as he was, but her plan withered as soon as it had blossomed as the arm he had wrapped around her tightened its hold. Half-turned away from him, she was stopped in her design.

“No, Mary”, he said, sounding rather offended and angry now, “it is not. And you know it. Unless of course, another face of things must be seen and it is you who wished to use me, to, by making love to me, persuade me to release your husband-“

“You really believe that?”, she enquired of him once his spiteful speech was quite finished. “You really believe-“

“I believe that you would do everything to protect what you deem right”, he added after a short pause in a much quieter, almost subdued voice. “You are a person of Principles, not unlike myself.”

His arm retreated from her midsection, leaving her to do as she had intended- but she did not.

“No. What I did- what we did now, it has nothing to do with Abe.”

“You wish not to spite him then, by laying with me?”

“The same question could be posed to you.”

Simcoe did his best not to look offended at the realisation that she was right, yet did not hesitate to make his motivation plain to her: “No. Perhaps, sometimes, we need what destroys us to feel alive.”

Once more, Mary turned to him, viewing him reclining there outstretched on the bed, his arms crossed behind his head and considering the handprint on the wall.

 _Perhaps, sometimes, we need what destroys us to feel alive_ , Mary let his words course through her brain.

Perhaps he was right.

Thinking of earlier, of the consequences she would face were Simcoe to change his mind, of Abe’s trial, of what would happen if Richard would discover them so, nothing of that mattered to her now, really; her intestines coiled into a warm, stirring knot when she considered his form before her. 

Abandoning every other thought and throwing caution to the wind for good, she bent over him and kissed his lips. At first, he did not respond either by telling her to leave him be or replying in kind as if he was uncertain if what was happening was real and not a dream, but when the second kiss, equally insistent as the first, found his lips, he buried his hand in her hair and pulled her on top of him.

“It seems, it feels right”, she breathed with what little breath she had left and received an equally breathless reply: “It is.”

[i] 18th century term for women


End file.
